The Assam government has decided to send a four-member team to Tamil Nadu on Friday to inspect the condition of Joymala, an adult female elephant allegedly being tortured at a temple in the southern State.
The decision was taken after Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma held a meeting with top Forest Department officials on Thursday evening.
The team will discuss the matter with representatives of the Tamil Nadu government and the Forest Department there to pave the way for the return of Joymala to Assam.
Joymala was leased out to the temple in 2008, reportedly for six months, by an individual from eastern Assam’s Tinsukia district.
The alleged ill-treatment meted out to the elephant has triggered an outcry among wildlife activists and animal lovers in Assam.
There are several cases of domesticated elephants leased out or transferred by owners of the animal to temples in southern and western India. But these invariably are not returned.
Assam-based environment activist Rohit Choudhury had in February 2020 complained to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change 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”.
