Elephant rescued in Narayanganj after viral torture video sparks outrage

Forest officials today successfully rescued an elephant which was seen in a video being brutally tortured by some individuals in Cumilla’s Daudkandi.
The rescue operation was carried out by the forest officials from Dhaka Safari Park in cooperation with various wildlife rights organisations in Narayanganj’s Kanchan area.
Rakibul Hasan Amil, an animal rights activist, shared a video on his Facebook page documenting the rescue of the female elephant, named Neharkoli.
“The mahout abandoned the elephant in Narayanganj, and it wandered through the area all night. We managed to rescue it today,” Amil said.
The elephant was rescued from Cumilla’s Debidwar.
Earlier on Thursday, Cumilla forest officials, with the help of locals, had rescued another elephant and initially believed it to be the one seen in the viral video. However, it was later confirmed that the rescued elephant was not the one subjected to torture.
Commenting on today’s successful rescue, Fazle Rabbi Mithu, a forest officer from Cumilla Adarsha Sadar upazila, remarked, “Despite the earlier confusion, it is reassuring that the forest department was able to rescue two captive elephants.”
On Monday, the video of the elephant being tortured by several people near the Fire Service and Civil Defence station in Cumilla’s Daudkandi upazila went viral on social media.
As the incident came to her notice, Syeda Rizwana Hasan, adviser for the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, gave a directive to rescue the elephant immediately.