WARNING: This article contains distressing content.
Horrific pictures have emerged that show residents of a village in India firebombing a mother elephant and her young calf after the animals wandered onto their farmland.
While the photographs have been taken over many years, they accurately document the growing unrest between local residents and elephants that are driven out of their homes by human factors such as deforestation in recent times.
The photographs were taken in West Bengal by photographer Biplab Hamza and detail the shocking lengths that some residents will go to in order to stop the elephants damaging their crops and property.
The mother and calf can be seen running across a road to avoid the flames from the firebombs that are being hurled at them by a gang of locals. In other pictures, people can be seen chucking stones at a herd of animals that have crossed into their community.
In some cases, the elephants are attacked in their natural habitat. Saddening photos also document elephants struggling to cross a railway line that has been built right through their home.
In certain cases, elephants are being caused to wander and impinge on humans because their own habitat is being destroyed by rampant deforestation.
This means that incidents such as the ones captured in these photographs are becoming more and more common as elephants come into contact with villagers and their property more frequently.
While the firebombing incident is at the most severe end of the spectrum, the series of pictures shows that humans are using ever more cruel techniques to remove the gigantic animals, ranging from throwing stones and waving flaming torches, to simply charging the elephants and chasing them off.
Hamza hopes that his photographs will raise awareness of the plight of the elephants. He said: "This happens because the villagers have to save their crops. There many elephant corridors in human habitations.
"I try to show and spread my photos to increase public awareness on the matter."
When the pictures were exhibited some years ago, Sanctuary Asia - a conservation foundation - said: "This sort of humiliation of pachyderms is routine, as it is in the other elephant-range states of Assam, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and more.
"India is the world's stronghold for the Asian elephant and boasts over 70 percent of the global population of the species. But this achievement rings hollow as vital elephant habitats and routes continue to be ravaged, and human-elephant conflict escalates to a fatal degree."
The organisation's statement continued: "The ignorance and bloodlust of mobs that attack herds for fun, is compounded by the plight of those that actually suffer damage to land, life and property by wandering elephants and the utter indifference of the central and state government to recognise the crisis that is at hand.
"For these smart, gentle, social animals who have roamed the sub-continent for centuries, hell is now and here."
Featured Image Credit: Caters News AgencyTopics: World News, News, Asia, Animals, India