VIDEO: Elephant Madhuri Returned to Kolhapur Shackled, Terrified, and Dragged Back to the Shed That Broke Her
A new video by PETA India reveals elephant Madhuri was returned to Kolhapur after over a year at Reliance’s Vantara in a heartbreaking and chaotic scene: hobbled and shackled by two legs; amidst the loud bangs of fireworks, screaming crowds and horns; and being pulled off the transport vehicle by her tail into a crush of onlookers—all to be returned to solitary confinement in the same bleak Kolhapur math shed that drove her to kill the math’s chief priest in 2017 and attack another man in 2022.
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Madhuri — also known as Mahadevi — had been living at Vantara’s Radhe Krishna Temple Elephant Welfare Trust since July 2025, following High-Powered Committee of the Supreme Court, Bombay High Court and Supreme Court orders secured after PETA India’s intervention due to her deteriorated physical and mental health. For the first time in decades, she could finally live as an elephant should. Vantara’s veterinary team documented the toll of her previous 33 years in chains: overgrown toenails, laminitis, a long-standing toenail abscess, painful swelling in both knees, and radiographs showing fractures and arthritis in her front feet.
That rehabilitation ended after a sustained political campaign — including calls to boycott Reliance products, pushed Vantara to reverse course and support her return to the Kolhapur math. And though the Supreme Court High-Powered Committee inspectors warned that the math is not suitable for her long-term housing, Madhuri was transported unnecessarily on arthritic feet over 30 hours, away from hospital facilities, and back to the same shed she had been rescued from after it drove her to violence.
At the math, PETA India’s video shows Madhuri now has painted trees standing in for real ones, a thin rubber mat in place of natural ground, and Madhuri alone, ripped from elephants at Vantara.
Join PETA India in calling for her return to permanent sanctuary before her isolation drives her to harm anyone else again.
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