We will hand over the petition to the President himself

Taking a lead in this mission to unchain Bandula the elephant was Bandula the human. Bandula Jayasekara being a media personality and having served in diplomatic positions was interested to unchain Bandula the elephant for various reasons. Having seen this majestic being at the zoo during his visits to the zoo as a school boy and see it grow within the four walls into a majestic being was one of his initial memories. “Therefore I thought it’s high time that the animal lives a chain free life at least for the next few years in his life,” Jayasekara said in an interview with Daily Mirror Life. “I wrote an article titled ‘Give me my FREEDOM says Bandula

the elephant’ and I received many responses. I then followed it up with a second article titled ‘We

should hang our heads in shame’. This is where it began and then there was a lot of interest. Then Dr. Rishani Gunasinghe suggested that we come up with a petition and we translated it so that it was available in all three languages. So once it’s unchained Dr. Rishani and Dilum Alagiyawanna who directed ‘The Great Elephant Gathering’ said that it should be sent to the Ridiyagama Safari Park to live a chain-free life. We have now reached close to 10,000 responses. Elephants should be in the wild and people are aware of it. Once the petition reaches a good amount of responses we will hand it over to the President.” Among the many people who have signed the petition includes Indian Union Cabinet Minister for Women and Child Development, Maneka Gandhi who is also an environmentalist and an animal rights activist. Hence the petition has received widespread attention both locally and internationally.