For Immediate Release:
6 December, 2001
Contact:
Jason Baker (0) 98201 22602, JasonB@peta.org
Mumbai — Film icon Madhuri Dixit is asking Assam officials to stop turning ‘a blind eye to animal suffering’—by taking action against those responsible for cruelly killing elephants in the region. In a letter to Minister of Forests G.C. Langthasa, Dixit says she was ‘saddened to learn that elephants are being killed by the dozens in Assam’. More than 30 elephants have been killed in the past two months alone, many dying slowly and painfully after being poisoned.
Elephants are highly social animals who enjoy extended family relationships—calves stay at their mothers’ sides for a decade or longer—and mourn the death of their companions. Earlier this month, when six elephants—two adults and four babies—were struck and killed by a train that passes through their jungle home in Assam, nearly 100 other elephants came to guard their bodies.
‘Due to the mass destruction of forests, elephants are forced to go in search of food and are met with poison,’ writes Dixit. ‘Please stop this mass murder, which is shocking the world.’
