The elephant kills a Dravidian coolie by stepping on him and smashing his body into the mud. (shooting an elephant)

The above statement is true.

I rounded the hut and saw a man's dead body sprawling in the mud. He was an Indian, a black Dravidian coolie, almost naked, and he could not have been dead many minutes. The people said that the elephant had come suddenly upon him round the corner of the hut, caught him with its trunk, put its foot on his back and ground him into the earth.