Keeping Madhubala alive: The fight for Karachi’s captive elephants

Karachi’s last two African elephants remain in captivity. Their sisters are already dead. Will they survive?

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African elephants Madhubala, left, and Malika roam with a caretaker inside the premises of Safari Park in Karachi on October 9, 2026 [Rizwan Tabassum/AFP]

The elephant sisters

In 2009, four elephant calves captured in Tanzania were brought to Pakistan, allegedly through an animal trader.

Two of them, Noor Jehan and Madhubala, were kept at the Karachi Zoo, while their sisters Sonia and Malika were taken to Safari Park, a larger facility also in Pakistan’s largest city that has both a zoo and other viewing spaces for visitors to watch animals up close.

Then, in 2020, Pakistan was gripped by the story of Kaavan, an Asian elephant that had spent 35 years in the capital city of Islamabad, eight of them alone after his companion Saheli died. Four Paws, an international animal welfare organisation, helped move Kaavan to an animal sanctuary in Cambodia, where he now lives with other elephants.

That episode also shone a light on the Karachi sisters. At the time, Allen was helping a friend with another animal shelter, and came to know Four Paws was in town. He reached out to them, and they led him to Noor Jehan and Madhubala.

By 2021, Noor Jehan’s tusk was infected. She suffered from malnutrition and stress, too.

Allen and the other activists couldn’t save Noor Jehan, but the campaign had turned into a wider cry, demanding care and justice for captive animals in the urban jungle of Karachi, the coastal home to 20 million people.

A truck carrying a travel cage for an elephant, Madhubala, passes from a street to be relocated from the Karachi Zoological Garden to a safari park in Karachi on November 26, 2024 [Asif Hassan/AFP]

Football friendship and ‘hurt’

For Allen, the work began with Noor Jehan.

While she was unwell, he says he visited the zoo daily, checking that the elephants received their food on time and in the right quantities. During Noor Jehan’s final 10 days, he was a near-permanent presence there, assisting the medical team however he could.

Her death became the beginning of the “I Am Noor Jehan” movement, which Allen leads for animals in captivity. The Pakistan Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), with I Am Noor Jehan, held a memorial for Noor Jehan with artists, filmmakers, and other animal activists.

Then came Madhubala. Preparing her to enter a transport crate required patience. Allen describes an elephant who could be aggressive and difficult to approach. Four Paws specialists helped him understand her needs.

But delays to the relocation disrupted the training, he says. Madhubala became frustrated and bored. Allen tried football.

He entered her enclosure, an approach he acknowledges Four Paws did not endorse. The caretakers warned him too: Madhubala wasn’t in a playful mood.

But within 20 minutes, he says, Madhubala wanted the ball.

She picked it up with her trunk and hid it between her legs. Then she began teasing her caretakers who were trying to retrieve it, offering the ball before concealing it again.

The sessions helped him build a relationship with her, he says. Madhubala began responding eagerly to training again.

“Earning her trust was the most significant accomplishment.”

That trust is especially important to Allen because he believes that Noor Jehan, and then Sonia, could have been saved.

When Sonia was unwell, Allen says he had raised concerns with local authorities about her weight loss and a swelling beneath her body. He says those warnings were not adequately acted upon.

“I felt I betrayed Sonia.”

Welfare check on elephant Madhubala at the new enclosure in Karachi Safari Park, Pakistan with Amir Khalil, Karachi, Pakistan, October 12, 2026 [Courtesy of Four Paws]

The above photo needs a credit -TSL

Former Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Athar Minallah, in a landmark 2020 judgement, declared that animals had rights. It was that ruling that enabled the transfer of Kaavan to Cambodia, and two Himalayan bears to a sanctuary in Jordan. The zoo in Islamabad was closed, and all 878 animals kept there were released or relocated.

“That judgement remains the law, as no appeal was filed against it,” says Minallah speaking to Al Jazeera.

“Under this jurisprudence, Madhubala has the right to live in an environment where her social, behavioural, and psychological needs can be met,” he says.

To be sure, the challenges that officials like those at KMC and elsewhere face are also real.

Pakistan already faces profound human hardship. A United Nations account published in March says more than 60 percent of people in the country cannot afford a healthy diet.

Acquiring animals that require specialist care creates obligations lasting decades. Once confined, they depend on people for every meal, for movement, companionship and treatment.

But that, say analysts, is even more reason to “stop keeping them in our custody”, says Allen.

He last saw Madhubala on October 8, when he was assisting the Four Paws team. When there are lots of people, he says, she gets distracted easily.

But she can also get jealous for Allen’s attention. “She will literally throw rocks if she can at anyone talking to me,” he smiled.