Lawer seeks court order for probe into deaths of wild elephants in Chattogram

A lawyer urges the High Court to order the government to form a high-powered committee that will investigate the unnatural deaths of wild elephants in Chattogram.

Supreme Court lawyer Manoj Kumar Bhowmick filed a writ petition on Monday, annexing a media report titled ‘Elephant poaching, killings: Swept under the rug’, published on Aug 23.

The secretary to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the chief conservator of forests, and the chief conservator of forests in Chattogram region have been made respondents to the petition.

“Barbed-wire fencing is being erected around the tea garden. The report said as many as 106 wild elephants have died due to the fences and diseases over the last 19 years,” Bhowmick told bdnews24.com.

Of them, 22 elephants died from old-age complications, 32 in accidents, 29 from various illnesses, 15 from electrocution and eight from gunshots, the report said citing data from the forest department. 

The forest authorities have filed only two cases over the deaths of elephants so far, which is frustrating, Bhowmick added. 

A High Court bench of Justice JBM Hasan and Justice Md Khairul Alam is expected to hear the petition on Tuesday.