THRISSUR: The Kazhchasiveli procession at Guruvayur temple turned deadly on Sunday morning as three elephants taking part in the parade ran amok, killing a mahout and injuring 10 devotees.
The mahout, 30-year-old Subhash, underwent emergency surgery at Amala Hospital in Thrissur after one of the elephants attacked him with its tusk and punctured his chest. Subhash succumbed to his injuries later in the day.
Devaki, a 67-year-old native of Guruvayur, and Rishi Raj, a 11-year-old resident of Kottapuram in Kannur, were injured severely and are being treated at Amala Hospital.
Eight other devotees - Vidya, 26, Pavizham, 51, Murali, 64, Das, 7, Janaradhanan, 50, Prasanan, 50, Geeta, 7, and Vijayalakshmi, 35 - were treated for minor injuries at the Devaswom Medical Centre and later discharged.
It all began in the morning when three elephants - Gopi Kannan, who was carrying the Lord’s idol, Sreekrishnan and Ravi Krishnan - were taking part in the procession.
At around 8.15 am, when the elephants were circling the temple for the second time, Sreekrishnan suddenly attacked its mahout, Subhash, and ran amok.
A perturbed Gopi Kannan joined the melee. Losing his balance, the priest holding the Lord’s idol dropped it.
Gopi Kannan ran out of the temple through a corridor near the Bhagavathy temple inside the complex. He was soon tamed and tethered. Ravi Krishnan languished inside the temple for around 20 minutes before he was tethered to a pillar. Sreekrishnan ran amok inside the temple complex for 35 minutes before it was also tethered.
At the time of the incident, more than 10,000 devotees were inside the temple to have a glimpse of the Lord on the last Sunday of the Malayalam month of Vrischikam.
Terming it an unfortunate incident, Guruvayur temple main priest Narayanan Namboothiri told the ‘Express’ that the idol falling down is considered inauspicious and a solution will be found soon after discussing the issue.
Heritage Animal Task Force secretary V K Venkatachalam said that the use of elephants inside the temple complex is a dangerous activity for both devotees and priests. The temple uses three elephants per day for parades violating elephant parade rules, the animal rights activist alleged.
Even though the Guruvayur Devaswom has appointed three veterinary officers to diagnose elephants on a daily basis, they are not available for round-the-clock services. The Guruvayur Elephant Camp does not maintain five statutory records - feeding register, work register, movement register, vaccination register and treatment register. As per the elephant preservation rules, every institution or person keeping elephants must keep these five registers.
As per the elephant parade rules, the Guruvayur Devaswom has the responsibility to submit in advance to the forest and police officials all the details of daily elephant parades 72 hours before their conduct. But the Guruvayur Devaswom has failed to submit them.
The elephants are taken to the temple without the veterinarians conducting the mandatory daily diagnosis, Venkatachalm alleged. He said many elephants used for the parades inside the temple are managed by mahouts having no control over them. The mahouts bring these elephants under control by using banned weapons like ankush, valiyakol and capture belts with sharp edged iron hooks, he added.