Begusarai Temple Wins PETA India Award for Abolishing Archaic and Cruel Animal Sacrifice
A Progressive Institution Award was presented by PETA India to Maa Durga Temple Pushpalata Ghosh Charitable Trust in recognition of its progressive initiative to replace cruel animal sacrifice with alms of fruits and vegetables at Maa Durga Temple in Begusarai in Bihar. The award has been granted to the trust for encouraging compassionate worship – a move that will protect animals from being killed in painful ways during sacrifice while they are still conscious and able to feel pain.
Every year, thousands of animals, including goats, buffaloes, and chickens, are killed during religious occasions such as ul-Adha, Dussehra, and Durga Puja. In defiance of the laws regarding animal transport, many animals slated for sacrifice are crammed into severely crowded trucks, which routinely causes suffocation and broken bones. During sacrifice, untrained people typically cut open the animals’ throats or decapitate them in full view of other terrified animals without first stunning them – a mandatory but often ignored legal requirement for animals killed in licensed slaughterhouses.
Recently, numerous members of Parliament backed PETA India’s appeal to Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Shri Parshottam Rupala calling for the deletion of Section 28 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, which states, “Nothing contained in this Act shall render it an offence to kill any animal in a manner required by the religion of any community.”
Many states, including Gujarat, Kerala, Puducherry, and Rajasthan, already have laws in place which prohibit the religious sacrifice of any animal in any temple or its precincts. The states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Telangana prohibit it in any place of public religious worship or adoration or its precinct or in any congregation or procession connected with religious worship in a public street.
