As the Muslim population in the country gears up for celebrating Eid-al-Adha, the Islamic festival of sacrifice, popularly known as Bakrid, PETA, the non-profit animal rights organisation visited an abattoir in Mumbai’s Deonar revealing ineffable cruelties being meted out to animals on the eve of Eid.
PETA India visited a slaughterhouse in Deonar region of Mumbai, where reportedly more than 1.24 lakhs goats and sheep and about 2,700 buffaloes have arrived from Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and even as far away as Assam to be sold for sacrifice. A disconcerting video shared by PETA shows how animals being transported to the slaughterhouse were subjected to horrible atrocities, in contravention to the animal transport laws, as mandated by a 2017 order of the Supreme Court of India.
https://twitter.com/PetaIndia/status/1160084071784972288?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The video apprises one of the grim reality of the savagery suffered by animals during their transportation to abattoirs and the subsequent ruthless treatment at the slaughterhouses. As can be seen in the video, a worker at the slaughterhouse admits on record that animals habitually die in transport due to overcrowding and lack of care by the transporters. The bodies of animals who die in transit are treated with egregious insensitivity as bulldozers are used to dispose of the carcasses of dead animals.
PETA has written letters to the senior officials of the Maharashtra state government, the Mumbai Police, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the Maharashtra State Animal Welfare Board, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Animal Welfare Board of India, and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India asking them to conduct immediate scrutiny of the slaughterhouse and implement laws regarding animal transport and slaughter at the facility.
Across the world, millions of cattle, mostly goats are slaughtered on the day of Bakrid as a mark of the sacrifice made to the Almighty. PETA has called upon the Muslims to abstain from sacrificing animals and urged them to grant these voiceless animals mercy by observing a bloodless Eid. PETA has asked Muslims to instead distribute vegan foods, offer charities and indulge in everything other than those that involve killing animals.