The Forest Department pruned the tusks of elephant Jayarajan of the Sreevallabha temple at Thiruvalla on the request of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) on Thursday.
The TDB decision to prune the tusks came when they have grown disproportionately long, posing difficulties to the elephant in freely moving its trunk and taking in food for the past few months.
However, the department has accepted the TDB request that has been pending disposal for the past one year following strong protests from devotees. The Temple Advisory Committee secretary, Vinodkumar Chuttyil, had even threatened to launch an agitation against the official apathy.
The Veterinary Officer of the Forest Department, C.S. Jayakumar, and the Devaswom Veterinary Officer, K. Unnikrishnan, supervised the pruning of tusks carried out by skilled workers.
K.K. Sathyan, Social Forestry officer in Ranni; K.R. Mohanlal, Deputy Devaswom Commissioner; and B. Girikumar, sub-group officer, were present.
The cut-away portion of the right tusk (930 grams) and the left tusk (1.10 kg) have been kept in the safe custody of the department and it would be returned to the TDB on production of the ownership certificate of the temple elephant, sources said.
