An areca nut farmer was seriously injured in an attack by a wild gaur at Marayur in Idukki on Monday night. According to officials, the incident occurred around 8 p.m. and the injured is Anthony Muthu Thankayya, a resident of Pallanad area in Marayur.
Mr. Thankayya had reached his areca nut farm for irrigating the plantation when the wild gaur attacked him. Officials said that it was some youngsters belonging to the Karpoorakudy tribal settlement who found the man injured inside his areca nut plantation. They soon alerted his family as well as the forest officials and shifted him to a private hospital at Marayur. The injured farmer was later shifted to a private hospital at Udumalpet in Tamil Nadu.
According to local residents, in the past three years one person was killed and five were injured in wild gaur attacks in the Pallanad area in Marayur. Locals have long demanded that the Forest department chase wild animals into deep forests.