Raju's story has captured our hearts: it is the story of an Indian elephant who spent more than fifty years of his life in chains, exploited and mistreated by his owners, who used him to beg on the streets of India after taking away his freedom when he was still a calf. His ordeal came to an end when volunteers from Wildlife SOS entered his prison under cover of night and removed the brutal chain that bound him, giving rise to an extraordinary phenomenon: the elephant is said to have wept with joy at his newfound freedom.

After being freed, Raju was taken to a nature reserve near New Delhi, where he was cared for, fed and placed alongside others of his kind. Yet his ordeal could have resumed, and the elephant might have plunged once more into the nightmare that had lasted half a century. His tormentors decided to launch a legal battle to reclaim the animal, asserting their "rightful ownership". However, the Indian court ruled that the elephant must remain in the care of Wildlife SOS.

Lawyers for the British NGO invoked a provision of Indian law stipulating that an elephant cannot be privately owned, as all elephants are the property of the government. The former owners, having purchased the animal from poachers, were unable to produce a valid ownership licence, and the case was dismissed.

"This is a great victory, not only for Raju," says Kartick Satyanarayan, founder of Wildlife SOS, "but for every elephant that suffers in silence." After a lifetime of suffering, Raju will be able to find peace: reintroduction into the wild is not feasible, but the elephant will be able to spend happy years at the Wildlife SOS reserve alongside the other elephants at the centre.