Whims of a General’s daughter led Kaavan to Pakistan

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Islamabad, 29th November: Kaavan and Saheli, children’s forgotten stars of the ’80s & ’90s from Islamabad Zoo, where are they now?

Baaghi TV: Kaavan may never have ended up in Pakistan had it not been for a Bollywood movie, some delicate international diplomacy, and an innocent wish of one little girl.

Zain Zia, the daughter of Pakistan’s then-military ruler Gen Zia-ul -Haq, fell in love with elephants after watching Bollywood movie ‘Haathi Mere Saathi’, starring Rajesh Khanna and Tanuja in 1971.
And so, she uttered a prayer.

Her prayer was heard, by her father, the General. One morning not long afterwards, as Zain was getting ready for school, Gen Haq asked her to stop, blindfolded her, and led her out into the back lawn.

“He said there was a surprise for me,” she recalled. “He made me touch it. Then he removed my blindfolds, and there the little elephant stood. He was so lovely. I insisted we’ll keep him at home, but my father said he belonged to the government and must go to the zoo. He said we won’t be able to take good care of him, especially when he grew up. So then I said OK.”

Kaavan thus ended up in Islamabad zoo in 1985.

Since then the poor elephant suffered a life of incarceration. But at least Kaavan was not lonely. For years, his constant companion was Saheli, an elephant brought in from Bangladesh in the early 1990s. But Saheli died some eight years back.

Kaavan now was totally neglected. His condition was so poor with chains biting into his wounds that got infected in time. He was tormented and forlorn. The authorities did not seem to care what happened at the zoo, or to its animals.

Oscar-winning actress and singer, Cher first learned of Kaavan’s plight in 2016. She hired a legal team to press for the elephant’s freedom. When the court ordered to set the elephant free in May, the singer called it one of the “greatest moments” of her life.

In the months since, she has chronicled his progress on her Twitter account, where she has 3.8 million followers.

The US singer visited Islamabad herself and met with Prime Minister Imran Khan thanking him for letting her get involved in this great task of setting free the old elephant.

Kaavan is now free. He is being taken to a new home in Cambodia, the one-million-acre Kulen-Promtep Wildlife Sanctuary, where volunteers and staff work to protect the natural habitat and house a wide range of endangered species.

In picture : Kaavan entering his crate, ahead of the long journey to Cambodia

(Source: BBC)

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