Portal:India/SC Summary/SA Crushing by elephant

For thousands of years, crushing by elephant was a common method of execution for those condemned to death, mainly throughout south and southeast Asia, and particularly in India. Elephants employed in this manner were used to crush, dismember, or torture captives in public executions. The use of elephants to execute captives often attracted the horrified interest of European travellers, and was recorded in numerous contemporary journals and accounts of life in Asia. The practice was eventually suppressed by the European empires that colonised the region in the 18th and 19th centuries. (more...)