A 70-year-old woman from India was killed by an elephant as she walked to collect water in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district. But the typically docile animal stunned her family when it returned during the dead woman’s funeral to trample her corpse.
According to The Print, Maya Murmu was collecting water from a tube well on June 11 when an elephant wandered away from the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary.
The tusked animal approached her as she collected water, hit her, knocked her down and trampled her.
Murmu sustained serious injuries and was rushed to the hospital, where she later died.
Later that evening, as family and friends gathered to perform a ritualistic burial ceremony, the elephant suddenly returned.
According to The Print, the angry animal stormed the funeral, took the corpse from the pyre, trampled her dead body, threw it, and fled.
"Her family kept the body outside the house for the funeral [and this was when] the animal again came and attacked her," Inspector Lopamudra Nayak of Rasgovindpur police station told The National.
Odia Media reported that the enraged tusker waited near the mangled corpse for over an hour before it began to roar.
Other members of the elephant’s herd answered the call, with the group of them then attacking the village and destroying Murmu’s house.
Murmu’s last rites were eventually performed a few hours later after family members were sure that the elephants had left.
It is not known if anyone else has been harmed by the rogue elephant.
Approximately 100 people in India are killed each year by elephants, although the number could be as high as 300, according to the World Wildlife Fund.