Guwahati, March 12: People for Animals (PFA), a leading animal rights organisation, has taken a serious note of the Assam government’s decision to “eliminate” two wild tuskers. Taking cognisance of a report published in The Telegraph northeast on March 11, chairperson of the organisation and former Union minister Maneka Gandhi said that she had learnt from “reliable sources” that the two tuskers ordered to be killed by the chief wildlife warden were in no way responsible for any human deaths.
The animal rights activist demanded that safe elephant corridors be created and the government desist from killing endangered species. In an e-mail to Azam Siddiqui, a member of the PFA (which was forwarded to The Telegraph), Gandhi said: “We cannot afford to lose a single tusker, more so as poachers are active in Assam.”
The warden had issued an order to shoot the tuskers by an elephant hunter following reports that at least 12 people had been killed since November by the rampaging animals in Biswanath, Bihali, Johamari, Tinkhoria and Teliagaon under two wildlife forest divisions under Sonitpur district.
The forest department has assigned expert elephant hunter Dinesh Choudhury the task of eliminating the elephants.