It is reported that an elephant killed a 70-year-old woman and then came back at her funeral to crush her body. According to local news in India, 70-year-old Maya Murmu was attacked by an wild elephant while fetching water in Mayurbhanj area of Odisha. The elephant wandered from the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary, about 10 miles from Janshepul.
According to Lopamudra Nayak, an inspector of the police station in Ras Gowendpur, told local media that after the elephant attacked her, Murmu was taken to the hospital, but she died of her injuries. Later, when Murmu's family gathered to hold a funeral for him, wild fangs appeared again.
Local media said the elephant approached the pile of pyrene and grabbed the body. The elephant then smashed her body again, threw it away, and left. The funeral was completed in a few hours.
Protection organization Save Asian elephants lawyer and founder Duncan McNair told Newsweek that the tragedy is a warning that although elephants are calm in nature, they can be "violent and deadly." McNair said these are not common when elephants are not irritated. "These endangered elephants are extremely deadly when excited or abused," he warned. "
"Elephants are usually harmless and quiet... They won't fight with people who don't pose a threat to their safety, babies or something like that," he explained. "[This incident] is surprising because the elephants are not irritated." McNair said that elephants' ability to return during the surgery and process their bodies may be related to their "extraordinary cognitive abilities."
We also met social media users who said the woman threw stones at the elephant when the poacher stole the baby of the elephant. However, no reliable news source has published this exact fact.
The above rumors prompted some to conclude that the stampede and reported funeral attacks were acts of retaliation, but no reports or data supported the claim.
