Since 1977, India has prohibited the capture and training of wild elephants. The state governments in South India, including Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, are capturing elephants from their natural habitats by claiming that they pose a disturbance or danger to the public.
These elephants are confined to small enclosures and subjected to severe mistreatment to become Kumki elephants, which are trained to drive away or capture wild elephants. Over the last decade, more than 12 elephants have been captured, and two of them succumbed to the brutal conditions in the enclosure.
The Kerala Forest Department illegally captured two elephants, PM2 and PT7, in 2023 in an attempt to train them. We challenged the captivity immediately after the captivity in the High Court of Kerala. The Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 was completely violated on these unlawful captures and our petition is the first in India to question the legality of capturing wild elephants on questionable grounds.
The general public believed that the capturing and training were authorized since they were carried out by state governments. Intense media coverage led the public to organize a mass protest against the third attempt to capture the elephant Arikomban in March 2025. The High Court stepped in and ordered that instead of capturing the elephant, it should be relocated to the state of Tamil Nadu.
The Kerala government and elephant lobby devised a plan to capture and train wild elephants under the name “kumki” in order to meet the demand as the number of captive elephants was steadily declining. The unlawful conversion to kumki has permanently ceased in Kerala and is still occurring in other states after the lobbying completely failed.
These are the petition’s impact, but regrettably, the High Court is still ensnaring our plea to free the wild elephants PM2 and PT7.
Additionally, the petition aimed to free the tigers held in captivity, as the forest department maintains their detention in violation of the National Tiger Conservation Authority’s SOP.
Angels Nair vs The Secretary on 31 March, 2023
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