Strict Surveillance Needed For Promotion Of Animal Rights

Every country is replete with innovations in policy: things that make life better for everyone. If we had a team in Niti Ayog, whose only job was to look through the Net and find these new strategies, then they could pass them on to the ministries.

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Perhaps the most important decision that was made in any country in 2017 was that the British government made CCTVs mandatory in all slaughter houses. Millions of animals are treated terribly before they are killed. I made a film on the way animals were treated in the Idgah slaughterhouse in Delhi . The judge fainted and the slaughterhouse closed down. But there are 15,000 more that behave as badly. Animals are kicked, punched, beaten, burnt with cigarettes, given electric shocks, even sexually molested before they are cut. Thousands of lactating mother buffaloes are cut illegally. And, before they are cut, their teats are cut first so that there is evidence for the importer that the meat came from a pregnant, or lactating, animal. Little babies are cut , dragged by their tails and jumped on so that their ribs and legs break. Human children aged 4 cut goats with razor blades, letting them bleed to death in piles. Pigs are beaten to death routinely, as the sellers believe this makes the meat softer. In one video, taken in a slaughter in Kerala , iron rods were used to kill calves. They were hit several times and then the rods were inserted into their throats. I showed the film to the CM and he immediately ordered an “enquiry”. Under new rules, CCTV will be mandatory in abattoirs in the UK – a good first step to prevent the very worst cases of abuse. This should be made mandatory in India as well.