elephant still serving hard sentence

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The New Straits Times - 21st. May 2002

 

Killer elephant still serving sentence of very hard

labour

 

KAZIRANGA (India), May 20. - Two-and-ahalf years after he killed

an American tourist and gored a fellow elephant to death, 53-year-old

tusker Godapani is still being put to rigorous work at Kaziranga

National Park, warding off poachers and wild elephants and delivering

supplies to staff camps deep inside the sanctuary.

 

Tired at the end of a long day, the threemetre tall bull is no longer

able to bear his own weight, dropping to the ground the moment his

duty hours are over.

 

A fateful fit of anger on Nov 17, 1999 cost Godapani his cosy former

job: carrying visitors four times a day around the park in the eastern

Indian State of Assam.

 

A split-second of anger was Godapani's undoing. Early in the morning

he and six other tame elephants were in the middle of the park, where

visitors rode on their backs to see the wildlife at close quarters.

 

Suddenly Godapani went berserk and killed Mary Mead Bumder, an

80-year-old tourist from Boston who was riding another elephant

about a metre away.

 

The enraged tusker then gored the tuskless male elephant hired by

Bumder, tearing apart its stomach.

 

Godapani had been carrying tourists around the park since 1972

without any abnormal incident and had been considered the most

noble of the 45 elephants the park authorities employ for tourists.

 

After the tragedy, Godapani was chained for days at a remote forest

camp with his keeper Mahendra Karmakar, who kept a close watch

on his behaviour.

 

The keeper believes Godapani shed tears of repentence, not eating a

morsel of food then.

 

After some weeks, Karmakar again rode Godapani and still does so.

" Today Godapani is absolutely normal and does his job with utmost

sincerity. I don't know what led him to turn violent that day.

 

" He is still the best tame elephant in the park with his tall stature and

majestic look scaring even wild herds. Otherwise he is a very gentle

and no-nonsense type of an elephant, " Karmakar said. - AFP