An elderly woman in India, 70-year-old Maya Murmu, was trampled to death by an elephant while fetching water from a well in Odisha on 11 June, according to The National News.
She died from her injuries and her family then gathered for her funeral, but the elephant that killed her then showed up again at her funeral.
It then trampled on her dead body and threw it, before fleeing the scene. Quite bizarrely, nobody else at the funeral was attacked by the elephant, except for the deceased.
The elephant is believed to have strayed away from the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary that is situated about 200km away from where the victim was first trampled to death.
Rise in fatal elephant attacks
Over the last 7 years, about 3,300 people in India have been killed by elephants, with the fatal attacks increasing in recent times.
Founder of the Save The Asian Elephants conservation charity, Duncan McNair, described the attack on Murmu as “surprising” because there was no provocation of the animal.
He said that the elephant’s attack on the deceased’s corpse could be due to it thinking the victim was a threat to its herd, according to Newsweek.