THRISSUR: The tightening of rules by the forest department on the parade of captive elephants during festivals has started producing results. At the Adupputty ‘Perunnal’ conducted by St. George Orthodox Syrian Church near Kunnakulam on Friday, the number of elephants was brought down from the normal 50 to 25. Forest department officials told DC that in all the coming festivals they would inspect the space and decide the number of elephants to be paraded. Mr A. Jayamadhavan, Assistant Conservator of Forests (Social Forestry), said that the festival organisers were observing the department guidelines.
The organisers of the church festival also complied with the instruction of the forest officials to avoid parading of the elephants between 11 a.m. and 3.30 p.m. The ‘Koottiezhunallipu’ using elephants began at 4.30 p.m. and ended by 7 p.m. Mr V.K. Venkitachalam, secretary of Heritage Animal Task Force here, said that the campaign of the pro-animal groups was fruitful. “At Adupputty on Friday, the people who turned up for the ‘perunnal’ were assured of safety by reducing the number of elephants and keeping out the injured ones from the parade.
