In India, a 70-year-old woman died from being trampled by an elephant. During a septuagenarian funeral, the same pachyderms return and attack the corpses of their victims.

A tragedy was followed by a scene that was at least as shocking. A week and a half ago, on Thursday 9 June, a 70 year old woman stood near a well in Raipal, in the Indian state of Odisha. The name Maya was then surprised by an elephant that attacked her. Our colleagues from The Independent reported that the victim was rushed to hospitalbut the wounds of the septuagenarian were clearly too severe to allow the medical profession to save him.

At the funeral of its victim, the elephant returns and lifts the body before trampling it again

Maya’s cremation was carried out a few days after her death. The ceremony started off without a hitch, but during the last ceremony the ceremony took an unexpected turn. The element that had killed the septuagenarian reappears. He walked over to the funeral pyre and lifted the body, before throwing it to the ground and stepping on it a second time. Maya’s family members, who were shocked by the incident, had to wait for the pachyderm to leave to complete the ceremony as best they could.

A region where this kind of conflict seems common

Local authorities said that before attacking the woman for the first time, the elephant fled from the Dalma nature reserve, which is located about 200 kilometers from the village where the first tragedy occurred. It is not known if the animal had other victims, while conflicts between elephants and humans are not uncommon in the same area.