Anushka Sharma, Shraddha Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Randeep Hooda condemn killing of pregnant elephant in Kerala

Bollywood actors including Akshay Kumar, Varun Dhawan, Anushka Sharma, John Abraham, Dia Mirza, Shraddha Kapoor and Disha Patani on Wednesday condemned the inhuman treatment meted out to pregnant elephant in Kerala.

The elephant died after a local allegedly fed her a pineapple stuffed with firecrackers in Palakkad-Malappuram border in Kerala on 27 May.

Expressing shock over the tragic incident, the actors took to social media platforms and demanded stricter laws against animal cruelty.

Akshay Kumar put out the heart-wrenching picture of the dead body of the mother elephant, tied in strings after being pulled out from the water.

Akshay Kumar's tweet:

Dhawan took to Instagram and wrote a long note alongside a heartfelt image to showcase the relationship between human beings and elephants. "They gave us food baby, to which the baby says, humans are so good," the image featuring an elephant with a baby inside her womb.The artwork was created by 'tedthestoner', which was later reposted by Dhawan.

Read Varun Dhawan's post below

Calling the violent act against the elephant "cruel beyond measure", Varun urged the authorities to catch the guilty and asked for their punishment. "Just stricter laws won't help. We need a decent execution of the law too. Until the guilty are punished in the worst possible way, these wicked monsters will never fear the law," he said.

Anushka Sharma too reposted the artwork and asked the Kerala Chief Minister to find the preparators and bring them to justice for the crime.

Here is Anushka Sharma's post

Disha Patani also urged the government to take strict actions.

Sharing some heart-wrenching pictures of the dead elephant and its womb, John Abraham shared a post which showed a sketch of the last conversation between the mother elephant and baby in the womb, where the baby asks, " Amma, I will never be able to see humans?" To which the crying mom says, "You won't regret baby."

Arjun Kapoor wrote that human race has "failed". "We have failed as a race. We can't keep the earth safe and protect it, we can't respect the other species that exist with us. We are all failures nothing and no one can argue otherwise. We will lose their trust, we will suffer and pay. It is inevitable," he posted.

Shraddha Kapoor urged people to sign a petition to impose stricter laws against animal cruelty. The 'Aashiqui 2' star put out the petition on Twitter and asked for 'Justice for our Voiceless friends.' "We need stricter laws against animal cruelty. It's HIGH time. Please sign this petition," she wrote along with the post.

Shraddha reposted the picture featuring the conversation between the mother elephant and the baby inside her womb on Instagram.

Dia Mirza and Sonali Bendre too condemned the incident.

Randeep Hooda tagged Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar and Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, asking them to take strict action against the culprits.

Earlier, the Silent Valley National Park Wildlife Officer had informed that the elephant was seen roaming around in the private area of the forest on 23 May.

"When one of our staff members went to see the elephant, it was observed that a wound in the lower jaw area was exposed. Later, for at least 24 hours the animal was trying to look for water. On May 24, we received information that the animal has come into river Velliyar," the wildlife officer said.

The officials said that a veterinarian was called as the elephant was weak and not eating anything and was on a liquid diet.

The wildlife officer said that they later planned to take the elephant out of the river but by then she had collapsed.
The officer informed that two doctors are at the spot to carry out the post-mortem, after which the carcass will be burnt.

(With inputs from Asian News International)