thiruvananthapuram recoding this years first instance of human casualty involving captive elephants in the state a violent male elephant killed his mahout at parassala the southernmost village bordering tamil nadu here on thursday morningsivasankaran said to be 42 years old turned violent when he was being taken out of parassala mahadeva temple where he has been put up for the past 12 years and gored second mahout jayan alias murugan to death at around 1015am the 38yearold man hailing from perumbazhuthoor neyyattinkara is the third victim sivasankaran had killed two others in kollam and thiruvananthapuram in 2004 and 2009 respectivelythough temple officials said the elephant was in musth elephant lovers pointed out illtreatment as the reason for the animal turning violent a team from the animal welfare board of india after examining the jumbo in 2015 had asked the travancore devaswom board which owns the elephant to hand him over to the forest department citing poor conditions and facilities for his upkeep heritage animal task force secretary v k venkatachalam saidthe elephant which was deprived of sufficient food and water did not have the facility to lie immersed in moving water for a minimum of three hours a requisite for proper care of captive elephants he pointed out venkatachalam has already written to project elephant director ministry of environment forests and climate change animal welfare board of india and state chief wildlife warden to take necessary steps to shift the elephant immediately to the rehabilitation centre at kottoor under the state forest departmentsivasankaran is among the 29 elephants owned by the devaswom board at present whenever a new officer takes charge there will be new appointments or transfers of mahouts and the elephants will be illtreated by the new mahouts in a bid to control them last year 12 elephants killed 13 people in the state of which 12 were mahouts venkatachalam pointed outthe year 2016 also witnessed death of 26 captive elephants while the toll has touched eight so far this year