Two wild female elephants were found dead in a paddy field in Dibrugarh district of Upper Assam.
According to locals, the carcasses of the elephants were found by some villagers in the wee hours on Friday while passing through the fields at Sessa Nagaon village in Madhupur area.
Madhupur area is 22 km from Dibrugarh.
The pachyderms were found dead at a distance of about 100 metres from each other.
Since the dead jumbos did not bore any injury marks, it is suspected that they might have died of electrocution.
Forest officials and a team of veterinary doctors rushed to the spot after being informed by locals about the incident.
Vital body parts were taken from the dead elephants for autopsy.
It is suspected that the wild elephants may have come in touch with electric wires that are laid by farmers around their paddy fields to stop elephant from damaging their crops.
The dead elephants were part of a wild herd of around 35-40 pachyderms from the nearby Dehing-Medela reserve forest.
The heard has been creating havoc in the area damaging paddy fields and granaries.
Earlier also there have been instances of people laying live wire in their paddy fields by tapping into power from high tension wires to ward off the rampaging jumbos.
Sources said that many wild elephants have died so far in the area after they are coming into contact with live electric wire.
The forest department filed several FIRs against the killing of wild elephants but no action has been taken so far.
“We will be able to ascertain the exact cause of death after the post-mortem report comes out. Since there were no external injury marks, we are not ruling out death by electrocution or by poisoning,” Dibrugarh forest ranger Nareswar Das said.
“If that is the case, we will take legal action against the miscreants. We have seen solar power lines near the site and questioning the villagers,” he said.
An FIR has already been filed at Barbaruah police station.