The deceased have been identified as Devi Acharya, 45, of Sapahi VDC-4, and Sharada Sharma, 40, of Sapahi VDC-1. [break]
According to Surendra Kunwar, a sub-inspector at Kolbika police station, the tusker came out of a nearby forest in the night and killed both the women in their houses.
During the attack, Devi and her family were able to flee the house leaving behind their two and a half year old grandson. But the elephant killed her when she returned to the house to rescue the grandson, according to Yagya Prasad Acharya, Devi´s husband.
The tusker had also left their house in a shambles. "We had built our small house only this year. Now that all is lost, I don´t have any property to give her a proper funeral," said Prasad.
The other killed in the incident, Sharma, was an Indian national living in the area for the past few years. Working as a laborer, she had managed to build a house. She was living alone as her husband and sons are abroad for employment.
"We thought that the tusker had killed only one person but in the morning we found Sharada´s body," said Mukunda Acharya, a local.
According to Ramnath Ghimire, police inspector, post mortems have been performed on both the bodies. Sharada´s relatives have yet to receive the body.
In a similar incident last year, a wild tusker had killed a person in Tagiya area of the district.
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