FIR Registered by Kolkata Police After Wounded Mare Found on Busy Flyover; PETA India Calls For Replacement of Horse Carriages With Electric Vehicles
During the first week of October, a first information report (FIR) was registered at the Hastings Police Station in response to a complaint by a supporter of PETA India after a wounded mare was spotted limping on a busy flyover leading from Hastings towards Esplanade in Kolkata. The mare, who was malnourished and neglected, had an abnormal gait and had sustained a swollen flexor tendon and an open wound on her hind leg. The FIR was filed under The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 1960, and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023. However, the mare has yet to be seized by the police. PETA India appeals to the police to find the horse quickly to ensure the welfare of the animal, who is at significant risk of being involved in a traffic accident. The horse could also be carrying a disease such as glanders, which can be fatal in both horses and humans.
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The FIR was filed under sections 291, 325, 62, and 3(5) of the BNS and sections 3 and 11(1)(a) and (h) of the PCA Act following the submission of a complaint by the PETA India supporter along with video evidence and an eyewitness account. PETA India commends the police for registering the FIR, which paves the way for the rescue and rehabilitation of the injured mare at a sanctuary in Shikarpur, Kolkata, where she could receive necessary veterinary care.
PETA India warns the area under the Hastings flyover is used to illegally house numerous horses used for plying tourist carriages. Horses are kept tethered there in their own waste and amid heavy traffic. This mare’s plight highlights the danger of injury faced by the horses in this area and the risk to the public from traffic accidents and the potential spread of zoonotic diseases.
In recent months, at least eight horses have died in Kolkata – as evidenced by information documented by PETA India and the CAPE Foundation. Through various investigations, dozens of horses in the city have been found to be anaemic, malnourished, chronically starved, and often with serious health conditions such as broken bones. Even though working on hard roads leads to irreversible leg conditions, they are still made to pull heavy carriages. When they are not working, there is no relief, as they are forced to stand in their own faeces without shelter.
Recently, the Calcutta High Court took serious note of incidents in which horses collapsed at the Maidan and elsewhere in Kolkata from poor health. The court also noted other issues such as the wide-scale prevalence of unlicensed hackney carriages in the city and the high rate of abandonment of ailing and unfit horses by their owners. The court directed the state government to develop a proposal for rehabilitating horse owners and providing them with an alternative livelihood to hauling tourists in carriages so that “dispensing with the horse-drawn carriages as done in Mumbai can be considered and examined for its feasibility.”
PETA India has repeatedly pleaded with authorities in West Bengal to spare horses further suffering and is working through a public interest litigation being heard in the Calcutta High Court to prohibit the use of horses for hauling carriages in the city.
