Accepting their grave act of forcing the forest department to capture the rogue elephant, residents of Madukkarai have apologized via posters to their late maharaj, who ruled their forests.

A poster said to be from them read thus: “Kattaiyan aka Madukkarai Maharaj: We feel sorry. We thought you will only leave this area, not the soil”.

When Covai Post contacted the phone number mentioned in the poster, a private printer answered the call and informed that they received the order for the posters on Tuesday night after the news of the pachyderm’s death spread.

“Few college students came here last night and asked us to print the posters. We don’t know them,” he added.
Onlookers, who cheered Kumki Kaleem when he made his tusk through the body of the maharaj, came in for criticism for enjoying the brutal mission that was carried out on Sunday last.

A few residents claim that the captured pachyderm was not the ‘encounter elephant’ (another name for maharaj) at all. “Kattaiyan is a huge animal. The one which they tranquilized and captured was small,” they said.

However, the captured elephant was very aggressive as he was forced into the kraal and transported.

With the pachyderm gone forever, a pall of gloom has descended over Madukkarai. The maharaj’s death has certainly saddened not only the residents, but for all those who had been following his story.