A 75-year-old marginal farmer has been trampled to death by a wild elephant that was standing in his courtyard as soon as he came out of his home in a village in Bankura's Barjora.

A forest department officer said a member of a herd of 70 elephants located inside an energised fencing in the Barjora forest had entered Gopbandi village late Monday night.

Energised fencings are installed in a forest area where elephants usually stay and stop them from straying into human habitats. The fences are connected to a low-voltage electric supply that stops an elephant from crossing it once they come in contact.

"The unfortunate death of the person (Sambhunath Mondal) was the result of an accident because of dense fog. We think neither the person nor the animal could spot each other and the elderly person went very close to the elephant. According to the rule of the state government, the deceased person's family will be given compensation," said S. Kulandivel, the chief conservator of forest (CCF), Central Circle.

The death prompted the villagers to launch a protest in front of the foresters and Trinamul MLA from Barjora Alok Mukherjee visited the spot to meet the bereaved family members.

"We are annoyed by continuous attacks of elephants claiming lives and damaging crops. As the forest department arranged a shelter for the elephants here, one or two animals coming out of the fencing became a threat to us," said a villager.

In a bid to pacify the protesters, MLA Mukherjee ensured that he would talk to top officials in the forest department with a request whether it would be possible for them to relocate the elephants.

"I will speak with the higher authority about the demand of the villagers for relocation of the animals. This is nothing new but the result of rising human-animal conflicts. We also have to understand the crisis of the forest department and the as well as of the animals," said the MLA.

A senior forest official said that despite round-the-clock monitoring of the animals, sometimes one or two of them, especially during the foggy weather, go out of the forest even by felling trees on the energised fencing.

A source said human deaths have become a regular incident in four Jungle Mahal districts, especially in Jhargram and Bankura in the past few years as a huge number of elephants started coming to the south Bengal forest from neighbouring Jharkhand and Odisha.

Last month, a wild elephant barged into a two-storied mud house in Jhargram, dragged out a sleeping 70-year-old woman and trampled her to death in the courtyard.

A section of foresters said the elephants started raiding villages, especially during the winter, because of the paucity of natural sources of food.