The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation on Wednesday made the claim that the elephants residing in Karachi Zoo and Safari Park are healthy. The revelation was made in response to a five-month-old case to sue the KMC for denying a foreign medical team to examine the animals.
In a petition filed in March, the KMC was accused of neglecting the four elephants at Karachi Zoo and the Safari Park, keeping them chained in small enclosures and denying them medical care.
The elephants, identified as Malika, Sonu, Noor Jehan, and Madhubala, were brought to Pakistan from Tanzania 11 years ago.
Muhammad Khalid Siddiqui, the deputy director of the KMC sports, culture, and recreation department the allegations made in the petition in a written statement.
“There has been no inhumanity, cruelty, illegal captivity of the elephants at Karachi Zoo and Safari Park,” the reply read.
Siddiqui further said that the “deplorable condition of the four African elephants” is “self-assumed”.
The petition against the KMC was filed after videos of the elephants surfaced and it showed that they had broken nails, cracked tusks, swollen legs, and damaged feet. Following this, an international animal rights group, the Pro Elephant Network, called for emergency medical assistance.
The KMC had, however, denied access to a foreign medical team — from Free The Wild network — to examine the animals and claimed that the elephants’ various medical issues were taken care of by a generous application of petroleum jelly.
Explaining the withdrawal of permission in his reply, Siddiqui said that access to the elephants was restricted after Free The Wild launched a “frivolous and deceiving” funds campaign to “further sabotage the reputation of the nation and its recreational facilities”.
He said that the permission withdrawal made the “petitioners embarrassed and irritated resulting in the petition under reference.”
Interestingly, the KMC had demanded access to the funds accumulated by Free The Wild at a previous hearing of this very petition.
