VIDEO: KERALA TEMPLE ELEPHANTS. TORTURED AND BLINDED

Elephant's musth period coincides with festival season of Kerala.To prevent the natural musth, drugs are administered to el.Now the el need only slight provocation to turn violent.Mahouts will be their first targets.To prevent el from seeing them when they turn violent, mahouts destroy el eyesight by various techniques. They destroy at least one eye of el and make other eye partially blind.One is to drop the eyes with the juice of 'appathin seed'.Rarely they use the knife-edge thotti to pierce and destroy eyes.They do this away from everyone when they take el to distant festivals and workplaces. If the retina is destroyed vision will be lost.If anyone asks about the wound they will say it was due accidental touching of stick. Beating of el head with thotti and iron rod leads to loss of vision.Each beating is taken on the soft head of el which is the vital part of el.El will wriggle with pain when beaten with iron rod.It will affect internal organs of els. The nerves to eyes are affected badly.Repeated beating leads to blood clotting of veins and it gets destroyed.Darkness will fall on eyes.It is the right eye, which is damaged most. Because mahouts beat mainly the right side of head. One of the biggest els in Asia thechikattukavu ramachandran has his one eye swollen and protruded out.

Posted by Rajeev N Kurup on Saturday, January 2, 2016