Chennai: S Muralidharan of INCARE, an organisation for animal welfare activities, has filed the PIL in Madras High Court on Thursday seeking closure of all illegal brick-kilns in Thadagam valley, Coimbatore.
The petitioner claimed that in the past two decades many brick kilns have come up in the Thadagam Valley in Coimbatore forest division, which is an elephant habitat, and the brick kilns have led to the drying up of Sanganur canal and has blocked the routine migratory path of the jumbos, and they are being forced out of their traditional migratory route in the valley. And so he sought a direction to close down the brick kilns.
A division bench of Justices S Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad tagged the PIL with another petition seeking a direction to prevent authorities from capturing, taming, tranquilising or harming ‘Chinnathambi,’ a wild elephant. It is to be heard on 11 February.