A captive elephant brought to a temple at Kidangur in Angamaly in Kochi turned violent on Friday, attacking and injuring two people, with one of them dying in the incident, police said.
Scenes of the incident broadcast on television channels showed the jumbo attacking vehicles parked near the temple.
The elephant flipped over a car several times, completely destroying it, and also damaged a few two-wheelers located there, even as the forest department’s elephant troop tried to seize the jumbo before it moved from the temple premises to a more populated area, police said.
An officer at Angamaly police station said that the truck driver was killed and the main driver of the elephant was seriously injured in the attack.
Later, around noon, more than two hours after Jumbo had become violent, a veterinarian calmed him down.
After charging, the elephant briefly became more agitated and flipped over another vehicle within the temple grounds that it had damaged earlier.
After that, the jumbo gradually calmed down, allowing the forest department team to tie ropes to its hind legs and restrain it by tying the elephant to a few trees, TV channels showed.
A person claiming to be related to the elephant said that the jumbo had in the past participated in the Thrissur Pooram festival and was calm by nature.
“There were no violent acts in the past. Something must have sparked it. The situation is calm now,” he told a television channel.
