As temples in the State get ready for their annual festivals, stories of mindless torture of captive elephants leading them to turn violent are also slowly surfacing.
The most recent case reported from the Central Travancore region was of the parading of an elephant with severe ulcers on its leg during the Aratt procession at the annual temple festival at the Sree Parthasarathy Temple at Aranmula.
V.K. Venkitachalam, Heritage Animal Task Force secretary, expressed serious concern over the cruelty.
The elephant, Kodumon Sivasankaran, owned by a contractor in Alappuzha, was made to stand for about nine hours on its affected leg throughout the Aratt procession, he alleged.
Mr Venkitachalam said the temple authorities as well as the officials remained mute spectators of this cruelty.
The elephant was earlier taken for a festival procession in Ponkunnam. The sight of the badly festered leg of the animal had initially put off the temple authorities, but the animal was finally brought to Aranmula for the ritual eying the money involved.
Another cruelty was involving the temple elephant of Aranmula, Parthsarathy, which was ill till recently. But the animal, too, was paraded in the Aratt procession with four persons on its back.
Mr. Venkitachalam alleged that the temple authorities also violated the government circular of March 20, 2013, which disallowed parading of more than three elephants.
In a similar case, another elephant named Channanikkad Vinayasundar was paraded in a temple procession at Puliyur near Chengannur on December 9 in violation of the government circular.
Vinayasundar, with a mahout on its back, turned violent and continued misbehaving for nearly two hours till it was tranquilised and chained.
Such cruelty often was the reason behind the elephants turning violent and even killing the handlers. Two weeks ago, a 47-year old veterinary officer, C. Gopakumar, was gored to death by a violent elephant at Vaipur near Mallappally.
The killing of this elephant lover and expert in tranquilising animals took place when he was trying to pacify a violent pachyderm in musth. The custodian of the elephant had been commercially exploiting the animal, ignoring its weak physical condition, Mr Venkitachalam alleged.
He called upon the government to take strict action against those responsible for torturing captive elephants, invoking the provisions in the Prevention of Cruelty Against Animals Act 1960, the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and the Elephant Parade Guidelines issued by the State government.
