Following the killing of a mahout by an elephant at a temple in Alappuzha on Saturday, the Thrissur-based Elephant Lovers Association has written to authorities seeking steps to ensure safe conduct of festivals and to see that elephant parading rules were adhered to.

In a statement at Alappuzha on Sunday, Association secretary V.K. Venkitachalam said Chief Wildlife Warden K.K. Srivasthava and Animal Husbandry Minister C. Divakaran had been requested to convene a meeting of the State Animal Welfare Board for implementing the rules and directions given by the Forest Department, Revenue Department and the Animal Welfare Board of India regarding use of elephants for festivals and other tourism purposes.

In the last two weeks, Mr. Venkitachalam said, four elephants had killed four persons, including three mahouts and one pedestrian, in three districts, all of them at festival centres. Further, most of these elephants had dangerous track records of killing mahouts or other persons.

The incident at Kottamkulangara here had an elephant, Mullakal Balakrishnan, stamping to death its mahout. The same elephant had killed a woman who had been feeding it for years in November 2009 on the premises of the Mullakal temple. Balakrishnan had turned violent on Saturday after another elephant, Pudussery Prabhu, ran amok and kicked him.

Prabhu, according to Mr. Venkitachalam, has run amok several times at festival places in Thrissur and Palakkad in the last three years. In another incident on Saturday, an elephant, Avittathur Ganapathy, ran amok and destroyed a private car which was parked at a house near Pattathanam in Kollam. This elephant was blind and had attacked and killed three mahouts in the last five years.

Pointing out that all these incidents occurred due to parading of elephants violating stipulations of the Kerala Captive Elephant (Management and Maintenance) Rule 2003, the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 and the Performing Animals (Registration) Rule, 2001, Mr. Venkitachalam said orders from the government regarding the same issue were not being implemented.

Courtesy - The Hindu