Animal rights groups to protest 'Elephant Polo Cup'

Jaipur, Nov 17 (UNI) Members of various animal protection groups including PETA, PFA will stage protests from tomorrow against the watch company Cartier for sponsoring the Elephant Polo Cup demanding them to stop torturing, elephants.

Members of PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, India; People For Animals, Haryana; Ranjith for Animals (RAW), among other organisations will wear prison costumes and elephant masks and hold placards reading 'Cartier: Time to Stop Elephant Cruelty'' outside the city's Central Park, near the match venue at Rajasthan Polo Club.

The protests have been planned after a meeting between PETA and Cartier in London, during which PETA representatives showed undercover footage of inhuman treatment of elephants in India, some of the very elephants who will be reportedly used during the Polo match. The match has received worldwide protests against this match.

Animal activists say it is with a lot of pain, torture and abuse that a elephant is made ready to play the game of polo which is actually a very fast game. They say elephant is an extremely intelligant and 'sentimental' animals and to force them to obey confusing commands, trainers allegedly use extremely cruel methods that inflict pain and instil fear.

The groups say Cartier should stick to making watches and jewellery and leave the elephants alone. They say ''Elephants belong in the wild, not on the polo fields where they are forced to obey confusing commands under the threat of punishment for the promotion of Cartier products.'' The activists say elephant polo is another method of deriving sadistic pleasure by binding the captive jumbos in excruciating pain.

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