Three elderly women died in an elephant attack when they entered a reserve forest to collect firewood in Alipurduar district on Thursday afternoon.

Another woman who was with them was critically injured and is under treatment. Some others with them managed to escape unhurt.

Sources said eight to 10 women from Dakshin Mendabari village in Kalchini block had gone to the Chilapata forest in the Jaldapara wildlife division on Thursday afternoon.

The village is around 30km from here.

While they were collecting firewood in an area under the Bania forest beat around 2pm, a wild elephant attacked them.

Although most of the women managed to escape, the elephant caught hold of Suromani Lohar, 55, Rekha Barman, 50, and Chandmani Oraon, 60, and killed them.

Neema Kheria, another woman, was also attacked and suffered multiple fractures in the limbs.

Kalchini police and officers from the Chilapata range headed to the spot after being informed by other women about the attack.

It took time for them as the forest was dense and they had to walk to reach the spot. The team rescued Neema and she was rushed to the district hospital here. She is in a critical condition, hospital sources said.

The bodies of the three victims were recovered and sent to the hospital for post-mortem.

“We got the information around 3pm and our men reached there with the police. It is an unfortunate incident. We are conducting an inquiry,” said Parveen Kaswan, the divisional forest officer of Jaldapara wildlife division.

A senior forester said despite awareness drives and alerts, some people who live on the fringes of reserve forests, which are also wildlife habitats, enter the jungles to collect firewood. Some even take their cattle for grazing.

“Time and again, we said they should not endanger their lives and should stay away from forests. Yet, some of them go to the forest. Today’s incident has again proved how risky it is to enter a wildlife habitat,” he said.