Army sappers normally are called in to clear minefields, build bridges or other military engineering tasks. But sappers from the Bengal Engineer Group (BEG) Centre, Roorkee have got the unusual assignment of constructing a sling and a belly panel structure to save a critically ill jumbo.

The ailing elephant, Moti, who has lost the use of his limbs, has been lying by the roadside in the Ramnagar district of Uttarakhand for more than a month. The 35-year-old domesticated pachyderm was abandoned by its owners as they were unable to meet its expenses, a senior officer of the BEG Centre told businessline.

Moti just doesn’t have enough strength to take any load on his legs.

The Army is learnt to have swung into action after former Army Chief and Union Minister General VK Singh reached out to the armed forces, requesting them help the elephant.

The BEG Centre team, led by an officer of the rank of Lt. Colonel and supported by one junior commissioned officer (JCO) and 38 personnel, was mobilised overnight and reached the ailing elephant at Ramnagar, close to Corbett Tiger Reserve, said Army officials here in Delhi. “We are under watch and wait since all efforts to raise a “belly panel temporary structure” around the elephant so that he can be lifted to allow doctors to start the treatment have not worked so far,” said the senior officer.

Left with no option, Moti has been turned the other way to medicate the bedsores that developed because of lying in one posture for weeks. 

A social media post by Shiv Kunal Verma, a supporter of NGO Wildlife SOS, suggested that Moti be flogged since he was “begging” on the streets.

Earlier in 2016, too, General VK Singh approached the Army to help rescue a stuck pachyderm, Sidda, also 35-year-old, who had broken his right forelimb after being chased by villagers in the Manchanabele reservoir of Karnataka. Sidda later died of a suspected heart attack. Hopefully, Moti will manage to make a recovery.

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