The Eight and a half feet tall and weighing 5.5 tonnes, Khaleem, the majestic tusker at Anamalai Tiger Reserve is Tamil Nadu's star kumki elephant and Khaleem was captured in 1972 from Sathyamangalam forests at the age of seven and trained as a kumki elephant.
Khaleem is summoned to capture the wild pachyderm and take it to one of the three training camps in the state, which today are home to more than 50 elephants. Khaleem became a ward of Palanisamy, one of the most skilled mahouts, who trained the tusker for seven to eight years.
With the introduction of the Wildlife Protection Act that year, the idea to have a camp at Sathyamangalam was dropped and instead Khaleem was sent to the then Indira Gandhi Wildlife sanctuary and National Park in Pollachi, Coimbatore where an elephant camp was already functioning.
Some kumkis may panic and get agitated, but Khaleem never lets his mahouts down. A senior veterinarian has said Khaleem has participated in 60 rescue operations in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh so far and he has never failed to deliver and no humans have been injured in any of the operations.
