Gundlupet: A 65-year-old man was killed while his son suffered serious injuries when a wild elephant attacked them when they were guarding their crops at Shivapura village in the taluk yesterday early morning.

The deceased has been identified as Bellishetty, a resident of Shivapura village while his injured son is Mahesh, who has been admitted to a hospital.

It is learnt that the wild elephant, after destroying the solar fence at Kundakere Forest area, entered a village and villagers of Hundipura with the help of Forest staff managed to drive the elephant from the village which then fled towards Shivapura village.

The wild elephant then entered an agricultural field where Bellishetty had erected a temporary tent like structure and was staying in it along with his son Mahesh to guard groundnut crops. The wild elephant destroyed the tent and attacked Bellishetty and Mahesh, killing Bellishetty and seriously injuring Mahesh on his shoulders before fleeing from the spot.

Meanwhile, farmers of neighbouring fields rushed to the spot on hearing the news and expressed anger on the Forest Department. They said that wild elephants have been straying out from Bandipur Reserve Forest since a month and have been destroying standing crops besides  attacking villagers. The villagers shouted slogans against the Forest Department for not taking any steps to prevent wild jumbos from entering human habitat.

The villagers said that in recent days, the menace of wild elephants had increased in the surroundings of Hundipura village and though the Forest officials knew about it, they had not taken any preventive steps in this regard. They demanded higher officials from the Forest Department to come to the spot and take steps to provide compensation to the deceased Bellishetty family members immediately.

Bandipur Project Tiger Director Dr. Ramesh Kumar and Dy.SP Priyadarshini, who visited the spot, spoke with the protesting villagers and Dr. Ramesh Kumar handed over a compensation cheque for Rs. 2 lakh to the family members of deceased Bellishetty and assured of providing the remaining Rs. 3.5 lakh compensation at the earliest.