"This is how we are paying our respects to the dead animals as elephants form an integral part of our religious customs and practices," said Dharani Pegu, one of about 100 locals who had gathered for the ceremony in Chakardeo, near Guwahati, the main city in India's northeastern state of Assam.

Flowers were sprinkled at the prayer site as a Hindu priest performed the rituals.

The three wild Asiatic elephants -- two adults and a calf -- were killed on June 21 by a speeding passenger train as they were crossing the tracks.

"If we don't perform the rituals, we know for sure that the herds of wild elephants that roam in and around our village will trouble us," a villager said.

At least a dozen elephants have been killed in Assam by speeding trains in the past three years. Experts say wild elephants have moved out of the jungles due to people encroaching into forests.

"The man-elephant conflict has assumed frightening proportions as in the last three years elephants have killed at least 150 people. Angry villagers, in turn, have killed up to 200 of the animals," the official said.

There are an estimated 5,500 wild elephants in Assam out of a total pachyderm population in India of about 10,000.

TERRA.WIRE