Hyderabad: Trampled by jumbo, zoo staff succumbs at hosp

Hyderabad: An animal keeper died after he was attacked by an elephant at Nehru Zoological Park in the city on Saturday.

Officials said that the Zoo Animal keeper Shahbaz entered the elephant enclosure to clean the premises as part of his regular duties. Vijay, the elephant, struck him in the enclosure.

The other staff members pulled out a badly injured Shahbaz from the enclosure and rushed him to Apollo DRDO Hospital. The doctors at the hospital declared him dead around 4 pm.

Zoo officials were trying to ascertain the details of the incident.

A senior official said that Vijay was actually from the wild and one of the two elephants that were caught in Tirumala Tirupati hills area in the year 1996. The elephant could have a ‘rogue gene’ that prompted it to attack the animal keeper.