The Indian elephant, which wandered about one and a half months, died at Koyra village in Sharishabari upazila of Jamalpur district at 7am on Tuesday.
“The elephant was suffering from different complexities. It fell sick last night (Monday night) and since then the rescue team gave it all kinds of treatments. But it died in the morning,” Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) Ashit Ranjan Pal said.
When asked about their next step, the conservator said that they were having discussion with the administration regarding the next procedures. The elephant might be buried in a nearby area.
But the local inhabitants are of the view that the elephant might have died due to overdose of the tranquilliser, which was administered to it by special guns four times on Sunday.
On Thursday last, a veterinary surgeon posted at Bangabandhu Safari Park in Gazipur injected the elephant with tranquilliser by using a special gun and in reaction to that the elephant started jumping up and fell into a nearby pond.
Then the people pulled the tranquillised elephant out of the water and tied it to a tree with a nylon rope.
Since then efforts were being made to bring the animal under control to take it to Bangabandhu Safari Park.
On August 3, a three-member Indian team came to Bangladesh to give support to a 17-member Bangladeshi team for the rescue of the elephant.
The elephant was swept away with the floodwater of the trans-boundary Brahmaputra River from Assam of India into Kurigram district on Rowmari border on June 28.
It wondered across Bogra, Sirajganj, finally into Dewanganj of Jamalpur district along the Brahmaputra and the Jamuna rivers for about one and a half months, looking for shelter and food while struggling against the floodwater.
Finally, the elephant took shelter at Koyra village where it was in fact chained.
