Humans are called the superior creation of God, but after what happened in Kerala, I doubt we have to rethink this statement. In a shocking incident, an elephant was allegedly fed a pineapple stuffed with firecrackers in Kerala’s Palakkad district and eventually died a painful death standing in a river.
It was found later that the elephant was pregnant. The wild elephant had left the forest of Silent Valley, meandering into a nearby village in search of food. According to forest officials’, farmers put fireworks inside food and plant it on the edges of their fields to keep wild boars away.
This incident happened on May 27. But the news came to light when a forest officer Mohan Krishnan, a member of the team who attempted to rescue the animal, posted on Facebook. He narrated the heartbreaking tragedy in his Facebook post. He described how the elephant chose to remain calm and did not disturb any villagers, though she was suffering from excruciating pain. Instead, she went to the Velliyar River trying to cool her mouth and trunk that was badly injured by the explosives.
Her jaw was broken and she was unable to eat. The fifteen-year-old elephant died in a standing position in the river with its trunk in water. The post has since become viral with more than 1200 shares. People expressed shock and anguish at the tragedy.
When the sad incident came to the knowledge of forest officials, they brought along them, two kumki elephants Surendran and Neelakantan to bring the injured pachyderm to shore from the Velliyar River. But to the utter disappointment of the forest department elephant was not alive to be brought to shore. She died in the water.
Postmortem reports revealed the 15-year-old elephant died of asphyxia where water had gone into its lungs and trachea. She might have drunk a huge amount to bring some relief to her mouth.
What a tragedy, a fetus died in the womb of its mother because of the most inhumane treatment meted out to her by the so-called superior creation of God- Human. This voiceless, passive creature of God is killed by one amongst us. Protectors have turned to destroyers
This is not one single incident, in April also, another wild elephant died in Pathanapuram in similar circumstances. But the recent incident is more tragic as in another 22 months it would have delivered a baby elephant.
So, we see this is not a single incident; there are many more incidents happening around us and some of these go unreported. It’s time for us to think about where we stand as humans? Where are our values of compassion, love, sharing, empathy, rationality?
We should stop compromising with these values and treat the weaker ones with love and compassion, bring back the human qualities of the past that we were bestowed with. The authorities should nab the culprits at the earliest and stricter action and punishment should be given to them who committed this heinous crime.
Of late news stories have reported that the incident has actually taken place in Palakkad district and not in Malappuram district as cited in earlier reports. Malappuram is a minority district and it is said that politicians are trying to add communal color by targeting Malappuram. Now the fact remains that this has been the most inhuman, tragic animal brutality, so keeping political agendas away, the need of the hour is to nab the real culprits and set an example to the society by punishing them for their cruelty.