Kilimanoor: It was one of those selfies that went horribly wrong. A reveller at a festival ground near Attingal wanted to shoot a selfie with an elephant brought for the occasion. The chained elephant was in no mood to reflect his glory. The beast struck the photographer down with its trunk and pierced his thigh with his long tusk.
Sreelal (37) from Mamam has been admitted to the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital with a deep injury.
Perhaps bored by the night-long cultural programmes, he had accosted the elephant for a selfie in the early hours of Wednesday when its mahouts were fast asleep after a day’s hard labour. The elephant was brought to the Umamaheshwaran Temple at Deveswaram to carry the idol as part of the festival.
The selfie-seeker tried to give a plantain to the elephant, which was chained to a banyan tree on the temple premises. The elephant refused the bribe and ambushed him. The man was lucky to escape with a hole in the thigh. He had a narrow escape when he came between the great tusks in the first thrust. He was whisked away by the mahouts who woke up in the commotion.
