Madras HC junks plea seeking expert panel to track rogue tusker ‘Arikomban’

Madurai (Tamil Nadu) [India]: The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court dismissed a petition, seeking an order to the Tamil Nadu government to appoint an expert committee to monitor the movement of rogue tusker, Arikomban.

Praveen Kumar Kerala, the petitioner from the Kannur district of Kerala, moved the plea before the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court, stating that the tusker, which lost its mother at the age of 2 and grew up in the Chinnakanal Forrest in the Idukki district of Kerala, only damaged houses and shops on forest land without causing any harm to civilian life.

Resorts, hotels and hostels have come up on land encroaching on the forest, leading to a scarcity of food and water for the local wildlife, the petitioner claimed.

“On April 26, the Kerala forest department caught Arikomban and released it in the Periyar reserve forest. Then there was a little tension as the elephant strayed into Kambam town.

The Tamil Nadu forest department caught the elephant and released it into the Kothaiyar forest of Tirunelveli district,” the plea stated.

The petitioner claimed that the Tamil Nadu Forest Department hasn’t been monitoring the movements of the rogue tusker as it should.

He sought direction from authorities to appoint an expert team and monitor the activities of the elephant with the help of a satellite radio collar.

The petition was taken up by a division bench of Justice SM Subramaniam and Lakshmi Narayanan, which observed that the “authorities were taking necessary steps and the court could not interfere in the matter”.

Earlier, Palraj, a resident of the Kamban town of Tamil Nadu, was attacked by Arikomban while he was sitting on his two-wheeler. He sustained severe injuries in his stomach and succumbed.

In April 2023, several farmers’ organisations from the Idukki district held a march to the Kerala High Court seeking respite from the rogue tusker, which roams Chinnakkanal and nearby areas in Idukki, destroying civilian settlements.

The rogue elephant was named ‘Arikomban’ as it is fond of eating Ari, rice in Malayalam.