Thrissur: A pro-animal Organisation has filed a complaint with the intelligence wing of the Forest Department and Animal Welfare Board of India against a church that allegedly used fire sparklers atop a hired elephant during a recent festival.
Heritage Animal Task Force, based in Thrissur, cultural capital of Kerala, has also sent the copies of the complaint along with the video footage and photographs of the alleged incident to the chief wildlife warden and state police chief.
The alleged incident occurred on October 3 during the two-day fest at the St Mary’s Orthodox Cathedral, Pazhanji, in Kunnamkulam, some 35 km northwest of Thrissur town.
Task Force secretary V K Venkitachalam’s complaint says the sparklers were set on fire by fixing them to holders which were in turn held by a person sitting atop the elephant. The fire sparked by the fireworks went up nearly four meters high atop the elephant.
“The picture of the incident which has been sent along with the plaint to top officials reveals the seriousness of the incident because illegal fireworks were set off during the procession to the church at Pazhanji market with jam-packed devotees surrounding elephant named Cherpulassery Rajasekharan,” Venkitachalam said.
He also accused the church of violating the latest High Court order that had fixed 100 meters as the safe distance to conduct festival fireworks. “By such a blatant violation of animal and safety laws, the organizers put the lives of hundreds of people who turned up at the fest at risk as there was every possibility of the pachyderm panicking and running amok due to the fireworks virtually on its back,” he noted.
Jaya Madhavan, assistant conservator of forest (social forestry) in Thrissur, said the fireworks were unlawful and the department will probe the compliant, deccanchronicle.com reported.
Kerala has witnessed several fireworks accidents that killed hundreds.
The deadliest was on April 10, 2016, at Paravur Puttingal Devi temple in Kollam that killed more than 100 people. As many as 68 people were killed in a fire accident in 1952 at Sabarimala, Kerala’s most popular Hindu shrine.
So far, more than 400 firework mishaps that claimed many lives have been reported from the southern Indian stat.
The data show the number of accidents and victims are going up every passing year.
In 2006, 24 persons were killed in as many mishaps. A total of 42 persons were killed in 38 mishaps in 2007, 49 persons in 2008, 57 persons in 2009, 66 persons in 2010 and 58 persons in 2011.