Haryana Speaker Gian Chand Gupta questions BJP MP Maneka Gandhi over sacrifice of animals on festival

Amit Bathla
Tribune News Service
Panchkula, July 21

As the Muslim community across the globe celebrated Bakrid or Eid al-Adha on Wednesday, Haryana Speaker and local MLA Gian Chand Gupta questioned large-scale animal sacrifice on the festival.

In a tweet this afternoon, the BJP leader even questioned animal rights activist and his own party MP Maneka Gandhi on the matter, asking “if this was not cruel to animals”.

“On the occasion of Bakrid today, lakhs of goat are being killed. Isn’t it cruel to animals? What steps are being taken by Maneka Gandhi-run organisation to stop the slaughter of voiceless creatures,” he said in the tweet that titles “Please answer Mrs Maneka Gandhi”.

Gandhi is the founder and chairperson of “People for Animals”, which works for animal welfare and their rights. Interestingly, Gandhi had earlier this year opposed the Panchkula Municipal Corporation’s plan to confine dogs at Sukhdarshanpur kennel to fulfil its objective of making the city free of strays.

After her intervention, the local civic body had formed a committee to treat dogs in a humane manner.

The committee then decided that captured stray dogs will be brought to the Sukhdarshanpur dog pound only for treatment, vaccination and sterilisation purpose and would be returned to their original locations thereafter.

Relocating dogs was illegal as per the Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules, 2001, enacted under the Indian Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, and rulings of the Supreme Court and other courts and guidelines of the state government, the MC itself in a statement had said.

Before the Assembly elections in October 2019, Gupta had promised to address the menace of stray dogs. Establishment of a dog kennel in Sukhdarshanpur had been his pet project to solve the stray dog menace.

In January this year, the General House of the MC in its first meeting had resolved to make Panchkula free of stray dogs by June 23, 2021. However, it remains a distant dream.