427 jumbos in captivity have no ownership records

Times of India‎‎: Kochi: Monday, December 05, 2016.

There are 427 elephants in the state without the statutory ownership certificates, according to information received under RTI. These elephants are in the custody of various individuals and trusts, which are connected with places of worship.

The Kerala forest department in its reply to the NGO, heritage animal task force, said 427 persons had applied for ownership certificate for the elephants which they had been keeping without the required documents. Of these applicants 320 are Hindus, 44 are Muslims and 63 are Christians, said the RTI reply.

There are 349 are male elephants, 74 are female elephants and four are Makhanas (male elephants without tusks by birth). Besides, there are 29 elephants with the Kerala forest department which are housed at Kottur, Karulayi, Kodanad and Konni elephant camps, without statutory ownership certificates.

"As per the provisions of Wildlife Protection Act 1972, the forest authorities have no special right to keep elephants in captivity inside their elephant camps without ownership certificates," said secretary of heritage nnimal task force (HATF), V K Venkitachalam. "Now all the 15 elephants being paraded as part of Tripunithura Vrischikolsavam are kept by persons without any ownership certificates," he said.

Among the devaswom boards, Guruvayur Devaswom has 52 elephants, of which 19 have no ownership certificates.

The Travancore Devaswom Board has 32 elephants and none of them have any ownership certificate. Cochin Devaswom Board has 11 elephants, all without certificates while Malabar Devaswom Board has five elephants, two of which have no ownership certificates.

The two elephants of Padmanabhaswamy temple - Darshini and Sudarshini also do not have ownership certificates.

As per the Wildlife Protection Act 1972, keeping an elephant without ownership certificate is a non-bailable offence.

"Such a wildlife crime may fetch imprisonment of seven years and a fine of Rs 25,000. But the state government has not taken action against any person for the past 69 years," he said.

During 2016, 22 captive elephants died in captivity due to negligence and torture, meanwhile 12 elephants have killed 12 mahouts and one woman.

Recently, Union minister Maneka Gandhi in a letter to the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) had also asked for a ban on parading of the elephants.