Goat’s Rape Prompts PETA India Appeal to Ensure Bestiality Remains Punishable Under the Indian Penal Code

In the wake of reports that eight men allegedly gang-raped a pregnant goat, killing her, in the town of Mewat in Nuh district in Haryana, PETA India has fired off a letter to Dr Harsh Vardhan, the Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, urging him to amend The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 1960, to include bestiality as a cognisable offence and to introduce stronger penalties for cruelty to animals. PETA India has also requested that the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Law and Justice retain the criminalisation of bestiality – sexual assault of an animal by a human being – under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) while amending the current wording to decriminalise sexual acts between same-sex human partners and between other consenting adults.

Recently, PETA India also worked with Nuh’s Superintendent of Police and the Nagina Police Station’s Station House Officer to have a First Information Report registered under sections 377 and 429 of the IPC and sections 11(1)(a) and 11(1)(l) of the PCA Act, 1960, against the eight men accused of gang raping and killing the pregnant goat.

PETA India is working with the police to get the SICK and DANGEROUS men who gang-raped a goat, killing her, in Haryana off the streets. See our blog post to learn how you can
help us protect animals. https://t.co/MBCSbdjKjF

— PETA India ? (@PetaIndia) 29 July 2018

As PETA India notes in its letter, several recent cases of the sexual abuse of animals by humans for which suspects were charged under Section 377 of the IPC indicate the need for harsher penalties under the PCA Act, 1960. A man in West Bengal was arrested for dragging a stray dog into his house and raping the animal, a security guard for a housing complex was caught regularly raping a resident female stray dog in a washroom, police found video footage of an accused murderer in Kerala sexually assaulting a goat, and a carpenter in Kerala was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing a dog. In separate incidents in Madhya Pradesh, two men, aged 25 and 50, were arrested and charged with raping a cow, and in Delhi, an 18-year-old man was charged with committing bestiality with a calf.

In a study of domestic violence victims, 60 per cent of the women said that their abusive partners had harmed or killed their dogs or other animals.

PETA India has long campaigned to strengthen India’s PCA Act, 1960, which contains outdated and ineffective penalties, such as a maximum fine of only Rs 50 for convicted first-time offenders.

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