Exclusive: The inside story of elephant smuggling from northeast to South India 

An India Today NE investigation has found that nearly 1,000 elephants from Assam are being held captive in various states of India, mostly in the southern states. And most of these are facing torture and ill- treatment by their handlers. The issue first came to light on August 27, when the animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), released a video on Twitter showing Joymala, an elephant, being tortured by her mahouts inside a temple complex in Tamil Nadu.
 
PETA has alleged that Joymala was subjected to torture routinely and that the mahout used pliers to painfully twist her skin to control her, even in front of the PETA team that went to the temple to inspect her. Following a complaint from PETA India, an FIR has been filed against the mahout at Virudhunagar police station, under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. In addition, a wildlife offence report under the Wild Life (Protection) Act and Tamil Nadu Captive Elephant (Management and Maintenance) Rules has also been registered, PETA said. A copy of the wildlife offence report, reportedly filed by the Tamil Nadu Forest department, is still awaited by PETA India.
 
A decade ago, Joymala, the elephant from Assam, was gifted to the Srivilliputhur temple in Tamil Nadu’s Virudhunagar district. She is now being kept at the nearby Krishnan Kovil temple, where the video was shot. The 18-year-old female elephant is still owned by one Girin Moran from Assam. 
 
The temple has reportedly kept Joymala in captivity illegally for more than a decade, as she was never returned to the Assam Forest department after the lease for six months had expired. One of the top Assam Forest officials says that lease agreements are made mentioning transfer of care of the elephant and not change of ownership.

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For such a transfer, a no-objection certificate, health certificate, DNA testing, and transport permit are required. Local touts, in cahoots with government officials, often arrange these documents. A report by Chaturbuja Behera, Regional Director of Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, Kolkata, acknowledges the existence of such a nexus.

Assam government wrote a letter to the Tamil Nadu government following which the Tamil Nadu Chief Warden of the forest department accorded approval in the month of May to take back Joymala to Assam. However, permission for official handover and transportation from the Tamil Nadu government has not come yet, even though the Assam government offered to deposit Rs 5 lakh to meet the logistical cost. “We have sent several reminder letters. We are also trying to rescue 4-5 elephants from Odisha too. It's not about domestic elephants here and there. It’s a question of someone ill-treating the elephant, "M K Yadava, Assam’s principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF), told India Today NE.
 
Joymala is not an isolated case. An India Today NE investigation found that nearly 1,000 captive elephants, out of about 2,000, used for timber logging in the Northeast states were sold to various parts of the country, primarily to South India, after the Supreme Court banned timber logging in the entire country in December 1996.
 
Section 43 of the Wildlife Protection Act (amended in 2003) prohibits the commercial sale of wild animals (including elephants). Yet the commercial sale of elephants continues in violation of the law. Elephants are in high demand in the three states of South India—Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. Kerala has the highest number of smuggled elephants, nearly 500 in February 2022, as per a report by the Bangalore-based Elsa Foundation, which works to prevent cruelty towards animals. The report claims that elephants are purchased by private people for commercial exploitation and also, allegedly, by various temples directly or with support from intermediaries. This high demand has led to the illegal capture of wild elephants in the northeastern states of India. These are then illegally sold in other parts of India.
 
While speaking to India Today NE, Prakash Sasha of Elsa Foundation said, “Private elephants in more than 90 per cent of the temples in the three southern states (Kerela, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu) are from the Northeast. These were commercially purchased, violating the law. We submitted a detailed report to the Tamil Nadu Forest department as well as the Temple department in 2021 and requested the government to rehabilitate the captive elephants. Till today, there has been no action. "
 
The report by Behera gives detailed accounts of how gangs and networks are involved in elephant trafficking. Some businessmen from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, who are settled in Assam, have developed links with the local agents in Assam to facilitate the transfer of elephants, says the report. Some of the elephant smuggler groups are also dealers in coal, timber, and auctioned vehicles. Between 1997 and 2002, nearly 800 elephants were sold to Bihar, Kerela, and Tamil Nadu.