NFR shelves plan to send four captive elephants to Gujarat

GUWAHATI: The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has put on hold its process of transporting four captive elephants from Assam's Tinsukia district to Ahmedabad in Gujarat after two animal activists filed a PIL against the state forest department's move in the Gauhati high court.
"Now that a PIL has been filed in the high court, we have stopped all proceedings to transport the elephants. In fact, we haven't even given the green light yet for the purpose," said a senior NFR official.
In the PIL filed on Friday, Urmi Mala Das and Nandini Baruah said sending the elephants in a railway wagon in the prevailing heatwave conditions would subject the animals to extreme stress, pain and cruelty. The PIL is likely to be listed on Monday for motion. While Das runs an NGO called Avinava Prayash, Baruah's Purr Paws Foundation works for street animals in Guwahati. Baruah is a fashion designer.
The NFR official said the Railways has written to the forest department, seeking a clarification on the matter in view of the Supreme Court's 2016 ruling against inter-state transfer of elephants.