‘Take a Vow Against Cruelty’: PETA India’s Billboard Campaign Calls For Horse-Free Weddings

For Immediate Release:

14 June 2022

Contact:

Hiraj Laljani; [email protected]

Radhika Suryavanshi; [email protected]

Bhopal– Ahead of the wedding season, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India has erected billboards in Bhopal, Indore, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Dehradun, and Patna alerting the public to the cruel practice of using painful spiked bits to control horses at weddings and urging couples to forgo using suffering animals on their special day. A copy of the billboard ad is available upon request.

The Bhopal billboard is located at Opposite Barkatullah University , Hoshangabad Road. Last year, actor and comedian Raju Srivastava starred in a video to highlight the suffering of horses used for weddings and other ceremonies.

“Spiked bits are torture devices that can injure and traumatise horses for life,” says PETA India Senior Campaigns Coordinator Radhika Suryavanshi. “PETA India is asking couples to have a heart for horses and leave them out of their wedding day plans.”

Rule 8 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Draught and Pack Animals Rules, 1965, prohibits the use of spiked bits – yet PETA India inspections have found these torture devices embedded deep in animals’ mouths, ripping their lips and tongues and causing extreme pain, bloody wounds, immense psychological trauma, and lifelong damage.

As public awareness of the cruelty of spiked bits grows, numerous wedding parties are now opting for horse-free baraat options, from simply walking to the event to arriving in fancy cars and even dropping in by helicopter. Celebrity couples whose weddings were horse-free include Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Rukmini Sahay, Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt, Shahid Kapoor and Mira Rajput, Sonam Kapoor and Anand Ahuja, Varun Dhawan and Natasha Dalal, and Zaheer Khan and Sagarika Ghatge.

PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animal are not ours to abuse in any way” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETAIndia.com or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

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