2 Assam refinery officials arrested for burying elephant carcass without following norms

Two senior officials of Assam’s Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) have been arrested for allegedly burying the carcass of an elephant, which died of electrocution, without following the norms.

According to the senior officials of Assam Forest Department, the two NRL officials have been arrested under sections 9, 39 and 56 of the Wildlife Protection Act and they’ll be produced before the court soon.

“They buried the carcass without informing the forest and also without following the norms, that was their fault. It is possible that they tried to hide the matter and we are investigating it,” a senior officer said.

The arrested NRL officials have been identified as Ujjal Nayan Handique and Vedanga Kashyap. They were arrested by the officials of the Divisional Forest Office of Golaghat district on Wednesday afternoon and were taken for interrogation, officials said.

The alleged incident happened on July 18. The wild elephant was electrocuted inside the township of Numaligarh refinery after it touched artificially placed electric wires. However, the NRL officials tried to hide the matter and they tried to bury the carcass.

Nature conservation organisation Stripes And Green Earth Foundation (SAGE) on July 18 shared the information on microblogging site X.

They wrote, “A wild elephant was artificially electrocuted inside the township of Numaligarh refinery. The authorities buried the body without even informing the local forest deptt. about it!”

Sharing this, Assam-based environment activist Rohit Choudhury wrote, “Hideous attempt to cover up the unnatural death of a wild elephant. A JCB was used to dig the pit. Salt was put to quicken the decomposition. An FIR must be filed against the NRL.”

Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma also responded to this, and he ordered a probe on July 21. Sarma said that if the allegations are found to be true, action will be taken against the officials involved in it.

The complainants alleged that the Numaligarh Refinery Township is located on an established elephant corridor which is a crucial migratory route for elephants.

The authorities of NRL called this incident unfortunate and they said that they were not aware of the matter. “We didn’t have any information regarding the death and the carcass was buried,” they said.

The authorities, however, said that the officials buried the carcass to save the area from the anger of wild elephants.

“In such cases, the other members of the herd get angry and to prevent this, the officials buried the carcass quickly that day. They didn’t have bad intentions,” the NRL authorities said. They assured adequate assistance in the investigation.