Outrage over elephant calf's slaughter in India

Indian environmentalists voiced outrage on Wednesday over the slaughter of an elephant calf in the northeastern state of Assam. Villagers armed with sticks speared the baby elephant to death on Tuesday after it strayed into a paddy farm in the state's Morigaon district, some 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Guwahati, Assam's largest city.



The attack occurred in the presence of police and a forest warden, video footage of the killing broadcast on television showed. "This is an outrageous incident, purely barbaric, to find villagers literally torturing the helpless elephant to death and that too in front of two security people," said wildlife conservationist Kushal Konwar Sarma.



"This was an inhuman act and needs to be condemned in the strongest possible terms," said Bibhab Talukdar, secretary general of Aaranyak, a wildlife conservation group in the northeast. He called for an official probe into the incident.



Man-elephant conflicts are on the rise in India as villagers and farmers encroach on the natural habitats of pachyderms. There are some 5,500 elephants in Assam, more than half of India's total of 10,000, according to official figures.