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For the cause of the gentle giant
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"Elephants are tortured and made to do hard work here when they are in `masth'. This leads to gruesome accidents."
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Motorcyclists from Chennai, on a trip to create awareness about cruelty towards elephants, at the city zoo on Sunday.
Maheswari looked quite happy while "posing" for a picture with a group of five young men. She chomped away happily and enthusiastically raised her trunk in a sign of greeting.
The septuagenarian elephant, now leading a retired life in an open enclosure in the zoo here, was chosen to be the good luck mascot by the team that has set out on a motorbike journey from Kanyakumari to Leh in Jammu and Kashmir, propagating the message against cruelty to elephants.
Visit to the zoo
The men had their first stop-over at the city zoo, where the city chapter of the animal welfare organisation, the People for Animals (PFA), had arranged a welcome.
All the five - Daniel, Ranga, Surya, Antony and Inderjit - are based in Chennai and belong to a club of motorbike enthusiasts, the Madras Bulls.
"Some of us are activists of the Chennai Chapter of PFA and hence we thought we will take the message against cruelty to animals along with us on our long journey across the country," Daniel said.
They decided to focus on the cruelty to elephants, as this is one animal that suffers at the hands of human beings across the country.
Hundreds of elephants suffer a slow and agonising death in chains, beaten and brutalised by ill-trained mahouts and uncaring owners.
They are also tortured in circuses and in the name of sport or religion, they pointed out.
"Elephants are tortured and made to do hard work here when they are in `masth'. This leads to gruesome accidents. There are people who buy very old and sick elephants and work them to death to claim insurance money. When we worship this animal as the symbol of Lord Ganesha, how can we ill-treat them?" asks Antony.
The PFA, Chennai, in its tenth year, has tied up with a UK-based organisation, Help the Elephant, to open an elephant shelter at a location on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border, where orphaned baby elephants and elephants rescued from human brutality and ill-treatment will have a loving home.
During their campaign for elephants, the group will appeal for the support of Wildlife authorities, corporate houses and animal-lovers for their new venture. The youth are planning to make a stop at Kollam, the district that reportedly has the largest number of working elephants and the highest number of elephant torture cases too.
They plan to stop at Kochi too, after which Daniel and Ranga will proceed on their 13-day-long journey, while the rest will head back to Chennai.
The duo will make stop-overs in major cities they cross on the way and at New Delhi too, where they would meet the founder of PFA, Maneka Gandhi.
By Maya C
Photo: S. Mahinsha
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Life
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Thiruvananthapuram
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