A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court to restrain the State government as well as Forest Department officials from keeping elephants under lifelong captivity after training them to be kumkis, which help keep in check, wild elephants straying into human habitations.
Activist Prema Veeraraghavan of Elsa Foundation had filed the case on the basis of a news report ‘Captured elephant calf lodged in kraal’ published in The Hindu on April 23. The petitioner also sought a direction forbearing the officials from taming the calf, lodged in the Varagaliar elephant camp in Coimbatore district, into a kumki.
In an affidavit, filed in support of the petition, she claimed that it was inhumane to keep an elephant calf in a kraal (wooden enclosure) at the camp since “elephants are social animals”.
Female elephants and calves live in herds. Such elephant calves need the support and protection of the natal herd for survival, she said.
According to the petitioner, the calf belonged to Mankarai forest and it was captured by the forest officials after it strayed into a residential area. Instead of helping it reunite with its natal herd, the officials released it into Aththikadavu forest situated atop a hill 33 km away from Mankarai, she alleged. Contending that the calf once again returned to a village at the foothills of Aththikadavu forest since it could not locate its herd, the petitioner said that the officials captured the animal once again and shifted it to Varagaliar. She also expressed shock over the officials having exposed the calf to attack by tigers in Anamalai.
‘Practice is against law’
Ms. Veeraraghavan said: “The process of taming a wild elephant involves capturing and confining a wild elephant in a kraal (wooden enclosure in which the animal cannot move a muscle)... The animal is chained, beaten and tortured by numerous people for several months in order to break the wild spirit of the animal and force it to obey orders of human beings.
“The animal is deprived of food or water. The entire process of taming is an utterly barbaric act and is in violation of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, and the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. Such a cruel process of taming a wild elephant to make it a kumki is not contemplated by law. There is no law in the country that allows for such a barbaric act to be executed.”
Contending that Santosh Sahu of People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) had examined the three-year-old elephant calf and found several injuries on its body, the petitioner urged the court to direct elephant experts Rajeev of College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences at Mannuthy in Kerala and Kushal Sarma from Assam to inspect the calf and submit a report in court.
