The heart-warming moment Raju the crying elephant found a girlfriend and had his first proper meal in decades after being starved and kept in spiked chains for 50 years

The heart-warming moment Raju the crying elephant found a girlfriend and had his first proper meal in decades after being starved and kept in spiked chains for 50 years

Raju the crying elephant has spent the past 50 years living a pitiful existence in spiked chains 24 hours a day. Every day, the majestic animal was forced to hold out his trunk and beg for a few coins from passers-by - surviving only on plastic and paper for food. He was introduced to Phoolkali, the first of his new friends on Wednesday after being released on July 4 in a midnight mission by charity Wildlife SOS. The five-and-a-half tonne animal was freed from his spiked shackles and driven 350 miles away to the safety of the Elephant Conservation and Care Centre at Mathura, northern India, which he now calls home. Raju's female friend Phoolkali is also a rescued elephant and was saved two years ago after she was found starving in a deserted windowless warehouse.