Thirteen dead elephants! Seven deadly train collisions and 17 years of apathy. The forests of Bengal’s Junglemahal are fast turning into graveyards for elephants, as steel tracks cut ruthlessly through their ancient migratory paths.
In the latest horror, three more elephants — an adult and two calves — were torn apart by the Barbil-Howrah Janshatabdi Express near Banshtala railway gate in the early hours of Friday, barely hours after forest officials had warned of elephant movement on the tracks. The deaths are not accidents anymore — they are the predictable consequence of a system that has turned blind to its own failures.
Despite every warning, every past tragedy, and every review meeting, the elephants of Junglemahal continue to pay with their lives, crushed under the wheels of indifference.
On Friday, the Barbil-Howrah Janshatabdi Express (12022), hurtling through Jhargram’s dense forests around 1 a.m, collided with the herd of 10 that was attempting to cross from Manikpara range towards Sipaibandh. The violent collision shredded the night’s silence, leaving behind dismembered carcasses strewn across the tracks. Hours before, at 10.45 p.m. on Thursday, the forest department had alerted the railways about the movement of elephants in the vicinity and requested speed control measures — a warning that was ignored with fatal consequences.
“We specifically warned the railways that elephants were moving in the area. But there was no visible effort to slow down trains or prevent such a disaster,” Jhargram divisional forest Officer Umar Imam told The Statesman. The department has since sought an explanation from the divisional railway manager, Kharagpur, demanding clarity on what actions were initiated following the alert.
This is the seventh recorded incident of elephants being run over in Junglemahal since 2007, reflecting a troubling pattern of indifference. In September 2007, an adult male elephant was crushed between Bhakuadi and Bhusudi villages in Purulia. In October 2013, a tusker met the same fate near Sardiha station in Jhargram. August 2016 saw three elephants, including two calves, killed by a passenger train near Piardoba station under the Ghughumora forest. A year later, in September 2017, an elephant died near Sardiha. In August 2018, three elephants were crushed by the Jnaneswari Express near Dumuria in Jhargram, and in February 2019, a calf was killed by a goods train near Garbeta.
With the latest deaths, the tally of elephants killed on railway tracks in the region now stands at a chilling thirteen, a figure that starkly indicts the failure of both the railway and forest administrations to institute effective safeguards.
Nishant Kumar, senior divisional commercial manager of the Kharagpur Division, admitted that an internal inquiry has been initiated. “We are verifying if the forest department’s alert was communicated to the train crew and whether any action was taken,” he said.
Following the latest collision, forest and railway officials visited the site while train services remained suspended until morning when cranes removed the remains of the dead elephants. The remaining seven elephants of the herd retreated deeper into the forests, as forest personnel ramped up monitoring to avert further risks.
Despite years of joint review meetings between the railway and forest departments, concrete interventions remain elusive. Forest officials lament that while each fatality triggers temporary outrage and promises, the structural indifference persists. “Every death is followed by routine discussions, but no lasting solutions emerge. It is symptomatic of an administrative culture that trivialises wildlife safety,” a senior forest official said.
Local villagers of Banshtala and adjoining areas, who have coexisted with elephants for generations, voiced their anguish. “We have lived with these elephants for decades. To see them slaughtered like this because no one cared enough to slow a train — it’s unbearable,” a villager said.
The forest department has reiterated long-standing demands: enforce night-time speed restrictions on railway tracks passing through elephant corridors, install motion sensors and thermal cameras along sensitive stretches, establish real-time coordination between railway and forest control rooms, and train railway staff to handle wildlife-sensitive zones responsibly.
“We have asked the DRM for details of all trains that passed between 10:30 pm and 1 am. Once we have the facts, we will press for strict accountability. This negligence cannot be allowed to continue,” DFO Umar Imam said.
The tragedy comes just weeks after The Statesman reported on the growing elephant population in Junglemahal — a 15 percent increase over the past eight years. While the growth reflects successful conservation, it also heightens the urgency of implementing protective mechanisms to prevent such recurrent deaths.
For the people of Jhargram, each dead elephant is not just a statistical loss but a profound grief that reflects a deeper failure — a reminder that in the race for infrastructural expansion, the lives of Junglemahal’s ancient residents remain expendable.