In India, an elephant killed by a trapped fruit unleashes religious tensions
Text by: Côme Bastin Follow
Emotion in India, where an elephant died by ingesting a deliberately trapped fruit. While the official was arrested on Friday June 5, an MP was charged for his Islamophobic remarks.
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Read moreFrom our correspondent in India,
It is a tragic death which unleashed passions, then interreligious tensions. Wednesday, May 27, an elephant who was expecting a baby died in the state of Kerala, India , after ingesting a coconut filled with explosives. Prohibited by law, this trap is still used by some farmers to protect crops from wild animals.
Images of the dead elephant toured the country and some media mistakenly located the event in a predominantly Muslim district. The next day, the Hindu party deputy BJP Maneka Gandhi accused the faithful of cruelty to animals, even suggesting that they were preparing homemade bombs against the population.
Incitement to riots
The investigation subsequently revealed that the elephant had ingested the trapped fruit in a predominantly Hindu district. Friday, June 5, authorities arrested a rubber picker for the crime. A complaint was filed against Maneka Gandhi for inciting riots.
Kerala has at least 5,000 wild elephants. According to the Ministry of the Environment, humans have killed, directly or indirectly, 373 elephants in India since 2015.
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