THRISSUR: A couple of days after the elephant monitoring committee extended the ban on tusker Thechikottukavu Ramachandran and elephant owner’s federation threatened not to parade its elephants for Thrissur pooram, the federation’s meeting on Sunday decided to approach Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Forest Minister A K Raju to withdraw the ban.
Though Agriculture Minister V S Sunilkumar had assured to take the matter to the Forest Minister and discuss it in the cabinet meeting, allegedly there was no response, the federation has now decided to submit a petition to CM and the Forest Minister seeking withdrawal of ban on the tallest elephant in the state. Based on the report of the forest officials, the District Collector had banned the elephant from parading in festivals as it was under high stress. The jumbo had ran amok last month in a temple at Guruvaur and killed two men.
Citing the ban, the Federation president Sasikumar said the Collector had no power to ban the elephant as the forest officials in the district had submitted a report allowing the elephant to be paraded three days a week in the district.
“The monitoring committee was formed to facilitate safe conduct of festivals and not for banning elephants like this. The federation will move ahead with protest strikes apart from the complaint to be submitted to CM,” he said.