Tamil Nadu: Elephant dies of burn injuries; two arrested

A horrific video emerged on Friday of two men throwing a flaming cloth onto an elephant in Tamil Nadu’s Nilgiris district and the animal trumpeting and running away in pain. The 40-year-old elephant died on January 19 of the injuries it suffered in the attack earlier this month .

The two men, identified as Prasath, 36, and Raymond, 28, were arrested for animal cruelty. Officials also sealed a homestay that the men were running; the elephant had intruded into the facility and the men tried to scare it away.

“This is heartbreaking and cruel. The action we take against them should serve as a deterrent,” said Nilgiris district collector J Innocent Divya. “They have been booked for offences under the Wild Life Protection Act, 1972.”

Forest officials had been following the elephant since November. “It (the elephant) had an injury on its back and it was roaming around in human habitation without going to the forest,” said LCS Srikanth, deputy director of the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in Masinagudi.

The department tranquilized the pachyderm in December. “But it was still weak and moving around very slowly,” said Srikanth. “This video {of the attack} is from January 3rd midnight.”

Forest officials noticed serious injuries to its ear in the first week of January. On the morning of January 19, they tranquilized the elephant again to take it for treatment to a nearby camp. “It suddenly died when we were nearing the camp,” Srikanth said.

Animal rights activists said such cruelty was a part of the larger man-animal conflict.

“Outsiders like {people who run} resorts, factories, brick kilns have encroached on forest and tribal lands and they don’t understand animals,” said S Muralidharan, founder of the Chennai-based Indian Centre for Animal Rights and Education (INCARE). “This is a criminal act and punishments under the Wild Life Act aren’t severe. The court should take suo motu cognisance of this; go out of the law books and pronounce stringent imprisonment so it serves as an example.”