Pregnant elephant death in Kerala: First arrest made

An arrest has been made in the case related to the death of a pregnant elephant with crackers in its mouth. Manoramaonline has identified the arrested as Wilson, a farmer.

The elephant had consumed a pineapple filled with powerful fire crackers which exploded in the animal’s mouth in the Silent Valley Forest, in Palakkad district bordering Malappuram, and died about a week later. The elephant died at Velliyar River on May 27 after efforts by forest personnel to bring it to the river bank using two other trained elephants failed. The postmortem revealed that the pachyderm was pregnant.

Her jaw was broken and she was unable to eat after she chewed the pineapple and it exploded in her mouth. Such traps are common among farmers in forest fringe areas to keep wild animals (especially boars) from damaging their crops, besides preventing them from entering into their habitats. Three suspects are under the scanner.

The incident had received national attention, and Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said it is not in Indian culture to feed firecrackers and kill, and that the government would not leave any stone unturned to bring the culprit to book.