The High Court has ordered a stay on issuing and renewing private licences for elephants used in circuses and for extortion in the country. As a result, elephants can no longer be used for commercial purposes such as circuses or extortion.

The court also issued a rule asking why the authorities' failure to stop torture and cruelty to elephants should not be declared illegal, and why issuing new private licences and renewing licences for using elephants for entertainment should not be declared illegal. The respondents have been asked to reply to the rule.

In the interim, the court has also stayed the issue of new licences and the renewal of old ones for keeping elephants, which are wild animals.

The High Court bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Kazi Zinat Hoque passed the order on 25 February after a hearing on a public interest writ petition.

Barrister Sakib Mahbub, lawyer for the petitioners, argued for them in court, while Deputy Attorney General Amit Das Gupta appeared for the state.

The writ was filed in the High Court in the public interest on 18 February to stop captive elephants being used for entertainment such as circuses, rides, decoration at weddings and advertising at rallies of commercial and political organisations, and to stop the torture used to train them for such work.

Actress Jaya Ahsan and the animal rights organisation People for Animal Welfare Foundation filed the writ. The petitioners are represented by architect Rakibul Haque Emil, founder and chairperson of the People for Animal Welfare Foundation.

The petition says the organisation has run various programmes for several years demanding an end to training captive elephants in Bangladesh through torture, their use for entertainment and extortion using elephants.

Animal rights activists have twice besieged Bon Bhaban, the forest department headquarters. The forest department made various promises at the time, but no effective action followed. Letters were sent repeatedly asking for action over abused elephants, but no proper reply came from the department.

The petition says tortured elephants often vent their anger and pain, running amok in settlements and killing a number of people at various times. It says such harm to people's lives and property is unacceptable when done to shelter the unethical business and illegal extortion of some dishonest people. Although the Asian elephant is now critically endangered as an IUCN Red List species, the forest department's licensing of these elephants to private owners for circus work is now in question, it says.

The petition also says that to force them into circuses and extortion, calves are separated from their mothers in infancy and trained through abuse. During extortion, the mahout sits holding a metal hook, which he uses to strike weak spots on the elephant's body to force it to extort and charge at people. This process violates the Wildlife (Conservation and Security) Act, 2012 and the Animal Welfare Act, 2019, the petition says.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.