Four Assam elephants to be ‘transported’ to Gujarat

Fourelephants from Assam have been permitted to transport to Gujarat for religiouspurposes. The elephants will be sent to Jagannath Temple in Ahmedabad fromAssam's Tinsukia district for a period of six months.

Assam forest department has already granted permission to transport the elephants to Gujarat and the Gujarat government has also issued the no-objection certificate. The owners of the elephants were already being paid Rs. 1 lakh each for the elephants.

Meanwhile,it has been suspected that the said four elephants are not going to return totheir owners in Assam after six months as in the past, several elephants fromArunachal Pradesh and Assam were leased out for six months to temples outsidethe State, but none of the elephants returned to the original owners.

Forest officials on Wednesday however maintained that the elephants are going to be returned to the owners after six months. "It is not relocation, we are actually transporting the elephants," said a top forest official.

Itmay be mentioned here that Jagannath temple in Ahmedabad is famous for itsannual chariot festival, the Rath Yatra, which passes through different partsof the city covering a distance of about 14 kms.

Skeptics suspect that this is not just an ordinary 'lease' of elephants, and there exists an unholy nexus. They are of the view that these elephants are actually being sold under the camouflage of lease.