guwahati laden the wild elephant that had killed five people in assams goalpara district before being tranquillised and captured seven days ago in an operation led by an mla died on sunday at a rehabilitation centre in orang national park the preliminary findings indicate the elephant suffered a cardiac arrest the detailed postmortem report is awaited said b v sandeep the divisional forest officer of mangaldoi the elephant was under constant observation and had started responding well to the mahouts it was exhibiting normal behaviour and had been lightly fed at 4am and 5am on sunday the male elephant rechristened krishna in captivity died around 545am veterinarian kushal kumar sarma who conducted the postmortem said the elephants heart was found with necrotic barriers death of cells or tissues from injuries or disease the elephant had a bad heart and was in stress there were several injuries on its body its heart function was already weak and the process of its capture might have precipitated the stress sarma head of the radiology and surgery department of the college of veterinary science in guwahati saidthe elephant had been brought to orang on wednesday for treatment of several injuries and festering wounds it made the 200km journey atop a truck in its avatar as laden the elephant had roamed the kanyakuchi reserve forest in goalpara district till bjps sootea mla padma hazarika joined the forest departments operation with his retinue of trained elephants on november 11hazarika whose experience of handling pachyderms apparently predates his entry into politics used his expertise to not only track down laden but also fired the dart that tranquillised the elephant chief minister sarbananda sonowal was among those who had congratulated hazarika after the operationnews of the elephants death led wildlife activists to demand an explanation from the forest department on why a legislator had to be involved in the operation to capture laden when a team of experts had already been constituted the bjp mla dismissed the suggestion that the tranquilliser had anything to do with the elephants death