A fleet of Gujarat-bound trucks carrying 10 elephants was released by the Arunachal Pradesh authorities early on Tuesday morning after they were stopped by scores of students.
More than 100 members of the Adi Students’ Union had around midnight intercepted the trucks at Pasighat, the headquarters of East Siang district. The trucks had come from Namsai town and were destined for Jamnagar in Gujarat.
“We checked the documents of the transporters after receiving a complaint by the students’ union, which had suspected smuggling of the elephants. We let the transporters go after we found the transit permits for the elephants and the papers pertaining to the purchase of the animals from their owners were genuine,” Tasang Taga, the divisional forest officer of the Daying Ering Wildlife Sanctuary, told The Hindu.
The transports also had no-objection certificates from the chief wildlife wardens of both Arunachal Pradesh and Gujarat.
According to the documents, the 10 elephants — mostly sub-adults — were domesticated and purchased from a few owners from Chowkham in Namsai district by the Radhe Krishna Temple Welfare Trust of Jamnagar.
According to the documents, the trust claimed to have adequate facilities with a hospital to house more than 150 elephants. It also claimed to have more than 300 qualified people to take care of the nutritional needs of the elephants.
Animal rights activities have been raising their voices against the transportation of elephants, caught from the wild and often tortured as a part of their training, in “inhuman conditions”. They have also been flagging the cases of ill-treated elephants at temples in southern and western India.
