CHENNAI: A Chennai-based animal activist has filed a petition before the Madras High Court to restrain the state government from sending Tamil Nadu mahouts and assistants to the Thailand Elephant Center for getting hands-on training on maintaining the elephants at a cost of Rs. 50 lakhs.

The first bench of Acting Chief Justice T Raja and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy heard the matter filed by S Muralidharan, Founder President of the Indian Center for Animal Rights and Education filed this petition.

The petitioner sought several directions to the state to quash the November 21 GO to send the TN mahouts to Thailand. Muralidharan further prayed for an order to invite Thailand Veterinarians instead to train our Forest Veterinarians and to set up elephant specialty hospitals in all our forest camps or establish a wildlife veterinary college hospital and research center for medicine & human-elephant conflict at the MR Palayam camp.

According to the petitioner, there cannot be any other best practices for the TN mahouts to learn in Thailand. Moreover, most are either illiterate or semi-literate and communication in understanding best practices will be a challenge.

“It is also an absolute disgrace that we are sending our mahouts to learn from such a tiny nation, considering the history we have with elephants and them. Give the money planned for the trip as an incentive to our senior mahouts,” he said in his affidavit.

Recording the submissions, the bench adjourned the matter to December 14 to hear it along with the MR Palayam elephant camp issues petition.

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