Assam Govt Sends High-Level Committee To Tamil Nadu To Bring Back Elephant Joymala
A four-person team from the Assam government will travel to Tamil Nadu on Friday to check on the well-being of Joymala, an adult female elephant who is said to have been subjected to abuse in a temple in the southern State.
After Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma met with senior Forest Department officials on Thursday evening, a decision was made.
Hirdesh Mishra, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, has been named as the team’s head for the tour to Tamil Nadu, according to an official announcement.
The team also includes Kushan Kumar Sarma from the Assam Agriculture University’s College of Veterinary Science, Aparna Natarajan, the Morigaon district superintendent of police, and Rupjyoti Kakoti, the Tinsukia district veterinarian and animal husbandry officer.
To facilitate Joymala’s return to Assam, the team will speak with representatives of the Tamil Nadu government and the Forest Department.
An individual from the Tinsukia area of eastern Assam allegedly rented Joymala to the temple in 2008 for a period of six months. The temple trust is run by the Tamil Nadu government.
The alleged mistreatment of the elephant has caused outrage among Assamese wildlife campaigners and animal lovers.
There are numerous instances of domesticated elephants being leased out or donated by the animal’s owners to temples in western and southern India. However, these are almost never given back.
Against the illegal transportation and smuggling of wild and domesticated elephants from Assam to other States “with the involvement of the office of the Chief Wildlife Warden of Assam,” environmental activist Rohit Choudhury, who is based in Assam, filed a complaint with the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change in February 2020.
The Chief Wildlife Warden allegedly granted approval for the movement of elephants to other States a number of times, according to him, but the Assam Forest Department refused to give him information on this.
“The fact is that the Chief Wildlife Warden, who is the custodian of the State’s wildlife, doesn’t have any information on how many elephants have been transferred out of the State or brought back into the State and there is no mechanism to systematically document the elephants speak volumes about the nexus between the elephant smuggling syndicate and the forest officials of the State,” he mentioned.
