mumbai bijlee the ailing 58yearold female elephant who collapsed on a road on june 11 after years of neglect died early on sunday bijlees owners forced her to work for 50 years by begging on the streets of mumbai and thane and standing at weddings paying little attention to her health or diet she had even sustained injuries in an accident after she collapsed in mulund top veterinary doctors made their best efforts to save the injured bijlee who also suffered from obesity due to bad diet degenerative joints and osteoporosis but they failed regretting that the elephant could not be saved founder of plants and animals welfare society paws nilesh bhanage said paws had earlier conducted a research on how captive elephants are cruelly treated and forced to beg forest officials have to stop any further cruelty to elephants we dont want any more bijlees to happen echoing him ganesh nayak of ngo animals matter to me amtm said we only hope bijlees death does not go in vain the state must ensure that other privately owned elephants are not subject to cruelty or forced to beg after bijlee fell fatally ill even actor amitabh bachchan had twitted several messages and posted on his blog highlighting the elephants miserable condition the forest department grants licence to privately own elephants only on a condition that the animals will not be made to work at weddings but bijlee was rented out to such functions in 2008 toi had reported how bijlee then known by her alias ramkali had to walk over 100 km to alibaug to attend a wedding of an mlas son on her way back to mumbai she fell in a ditch and a crane could pull her out after nine hours the owners also used several aliasesramkali and ramuto hoodwink forest officials in the last 20 days as bijlees condition worsened many animal welfare groups including people for animals pfa raww amtm and also individuals like raju iyer tried their best to save her now they are concerned about the other elephants who faces similar fate at the hands of their owners the condition of another elephant laxmi 36 is turning bad she is also overweight due to bad diet said an activist there are nearly 10 privately owned elephants in and around mumbai and thane the owners buy them from assam and madhya pradesh to make them beg this is cruelty to the gentle giants who are naturally acclimatized to roaming in herds in the wild said activist bhavin gathani of karuna parivar pointing out the misery the animals are subject to shakuntala majumdar of thane society for the prevention of cruelty to animals said the elephants are kept in places without any shed to protect them from rain or sun tough rules must be implemented to stop the elephants from begging walking for hours on hot cemented roads and eating unhealthy food like vada pav which is high on fat affects the health of elephants thane