Thrissur: A total of four tusks of two elephants which had died over two decades ago have been missing from Sankarankulangara temple devaswom at Kanattukara here. This was revealed by two devaswom managing committee members, Janardhanan Nambiar and Anil Kumar Nair, at a press meet here on Saturday. Though the trading of tusks is banned since 1989 as per an international treaty, a kg of elephant tusks costs Rs 75,000 in the black market. The matter was taken up with the forest department officials and Forest Minister K. Raju. The flying squad of the department conducted a preliminary inspection at the devaswom and found the tusks missing.
Secretary of Heritage Animal Task Force V.K. Venkitachalam told DC that the two members were newly elected to the committee after annual public meeting of the devaswom recently and they took up the matter with the other members. “Elephant Krishnankutty of the devaswom died after being hit by a bus on April 9, 1996 and another elephant Ganapahty had died on July 19, 1993. The tusks of both these elephants are missing and the total weight of all the missing tusks will be 700 kg. The cost will be Rs 5.25 crore in the black market,” he noted.
He also said that the tusks had been missing from the printed and published audit report of the devaswom since 2003 and the managing committee members had been keeping mum. Venkitachalam has also filed a complaint with National Board for Wildlife over the matter. Since 2006, after the death of elephants, the forest department has been taking the tusks in custody and they are being stored in the lockers of Chief Wildlife Warden in Thiruvanathapuram, he added. Like in the case of Sankarankulangara devaswom, several other temples had been possessing such tusks and a much larger picture on such missing tusks would emerge if the forest department orders an inquiry into the pre-2006 scenario, he said.
