Charging elephant
One of the elephants then caught her in the trunk and throwing her on the ground, she was trampled to death. Few kilometers ahead, the herd chased other two women at Chorbhatti forest in the same style, while the women were collecting forest produce and were crushed by elephants, JR Nayak, Korba divisional forest officer said. Police team and forest officials rushed to spot to find the three women dead, however, families of deceased were provided instant relief compensation of Rs 10,000.
According to Nayak, herd of elephants had entered early on Sunday from Dharamjaigarh forest region to Korba division and have been frequenting in Katghora region as well for quite sometime. Deceased were identified as Maankunwar (35), Dilkunwar rathiya (70) and Kamla Bai (48). Korba collector Reena Babasaheb Kangle has issued alert in the region and has asked villagers not to venture into forests for next few days.
She has asked locals to be alert and immediately inform forest officials on spotting elephants in the region. Officials who had been tracing this her said that tuskers were spotted at a private farmhouse at Bundeli village on March 24 where they had damaged crops on ten acres of land and camped there for six hours. The herd had damaged water pumps, pipelines, tanks in the farmhouse.
After two days they had reached Kudmura forest range in Korba and caved down four to six houses, leaving families homeless and now, after killing three women, they have marched towards Champa region. Officials said that elephants and bear are fond of Mahua fruit which is available in abundance in forest.
The above story involves a herd of elephants, and usually they would be ruled by a matriarch elephant, an older experienced female, since single elephants and smaller groups often consists of bull elephants.
There are a number of videos on the net with violent or agressive elephants and it is not pretty; actually execution by elephant was used in ancient times and lasted in India until the coming of the British [Link]
The causes of elephant rage are discussed in a readable article in the Australian newspaper Sunday Morning Herald: [Link]
In India about 150-300 people get killed every year.
This [Link] states:
"It has even been reported in some areas where there is extreme population pressure and habitat shrinkage that elephant herds are becoming noticeably more aggressive towards man.
Crop raiding results in human deaths on a weekly basis"
This [Link] details the attack of elephants in different parts of Asia:
"Describing one elephant raid an Assamese official said, “The elephants entered the village and guzzled down locally-made rice beer kept in drums and then went on a rampage, killing three people, including one woman."
Maybe the Elephant habitats in India have been reduced, but from 1980 to 2007 the population of wild elephants increased from around 17000 to 28000 ([Link] go to page 10. According to [Link] there were around 30000 elephants in 2012. In [Link] one learns that there are about 4000 domesticated elephants in India, or 35000 elephants all together.
In India, the number of people killed by elephants has remained pretty stable compared to the increases in the elephant and human populations.
Here is a well written student report about the communications and social skills of elephants: [Link]
Besides the biology and psychology of elephants there is also the symbolic meaning in different cultures [Link] For India read fx [Link] or [Link] and the last link also has other general information about the Indian elephants.