With one ear and a trembling heart, the temple elephant stepped into freedom, tears streaming like rain from a shattered soul. After years of captivity and silent suffering, the one-eared elephant finally took its first steps toward liberation—each tear a reflection of decades of pain, now being washed away by the light of hope.
This 45-year-old elephant has been confined to a 12ft square room for 20 years. All four feet are chained, he is forced to lie in his own faeces, and he hasn’t seen daylight for over a year.
In chains: Suraj cuts a pathetic figure before his rescue as he lies shackled at the Martand Temple, where he has been kept for 20 years. He is perilously thin, suffers foot rot and has one ear missing – most likely torn off when he was captured as a calf
Now he has just been given the best Christmas present ever – he has been liberated from his chains. The news follows our report in August about the plight of the estimated 600 temple elephants of India – starved, abused and chained to the same spot for decades.
Rescue: After a ten-hour stand-off, during which handlers threatened to stop Suraj leaving, the elephant is backed into an animal ambulance, above, ready for the 930-mile journey to the Wildlife SOS sanctuary near New Delhi
Easy does it: Suraj appears to give a final wave of his trunk as he is backed into the ambulance following his rescue
Road to freedom: The vehicle on the route back to New Delhi – Suraj’s trunk can be seen poking out of the top of the vehicleSo how did Wildlife SOS co-founder Kartick Satyanarayan feel when the ambulance pulled away? ‘The entire thing was incredibly stressful, and remained so until we were about six miles from the temple,’ he said. ‘That’s when it sunk in that we were out of danger.’
Care: He is led from the ambulance during a well-earned pitstop to be fed and watered during the 930-mile journey
Well fed: He was later photographed munching on some sugar cane as he settled in at the sanctuary
Kartick said: ‘Watching Suraj step off the truck into the sunshine and enjoy his first dust bath was an emotional experience for all of us.
