(IN)Blood on the streets

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http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071121/asp/atleisure/story_8571304.asp

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Blood on the streets

The Calcutta High Court has asked the municipal corporation to clamp down

on indiscriminate roadside meat shops.* *reports

 

Chickens and goats are routinely slaughtered on the roadside throughout

Calcutta. But a rumpus has broken out over the cruelty and hazards that such

practices entail. At the receiving end is the Kolkata Municipal Corporation

(KMC) which may be charged with contempt of court if it does not act quickly

to implement its own notification to stop this menace.

 

The row over illegal meat shops began in the late 1990s when school students

wrote letters to the Compassionate Crusaders Trust (CCT), a city-based

animal welfare organisation, to say that they were being forced to view

animals being killed and walk over blood while waiting for school buses.

CCT, in turn, approached the KMC to take action against unauthorised meat

shops in the city.

 

" We voiced our concern by writing to the then municipal commissioner, Asim

Burman. In response to our complaint, the KMC issued a notification to curb

the practice, " says Debasis Chakrabarti, founder, CCT.

 

The KMC notification of August 12, 1997, states: " the open slaughter and

sale of sheep, goats or chickens near the marketplaces or on the pavements

or roads is unhealthy and prohibited by law. " The notification says that

such slaughter has to be stopped within a month failing which the entire

livestock will be seized and the unauthorised sellers sued.

 

" Unfortunately, no one took any notice of this announcement and illegal

slaughtering of animals continues throughout the city, " says Chakrabarti.

His view is shared by G.K. Sen, proprietor of G.K. Sen and Associates, a

firm that conducted a survey of slaughterhouses in Calcutta last year.

" Animals are being illegally slaughtered even now and the enforcement of

laws is lax, " says Sen.

 

The slaughter of animals comes under the purview of several laws. " The

Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, and the Prevention of Cruelty to

Animals (Slaughterhouse) Rules, 2001, clearly lay down the modalities of

slaughter and the responsibilities of public bodies that are responsible for

dealing with related offences and fixing the penalty, " explains Pradip Kumar

Ray, advocate at the Calcutta High Court and a social activist. Among other

things, no animal is supposed to be slaughtered in sight of another animal

and no animal not certified by a veterinary doctor as fit to be slaughtered

is supposed to be killed.

 

Ray says that since these laws were openly being flouted despite the

notification and articles that had been published in the press, a writ

petition was filed in the high court by a citizen as a public interest

litigation in early 2007. The petition asked for immediate implementation of

the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Slaughterhouse Rules), 2001. In

response to this petition, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh and Biswanath

Sammadar of the Calcutta High Court issued a directive to the KMC on March

19, 2007, to implement the notice it had issued in 1997. The directive

called for steps against those who had been violating the notice and asked

the municipal commissioner to take measures to ensure that meat shop owners

were adhering to the norms of slaughter as laid out in the Prevention of

Cruelty to Animals (Slaughterhouse Rules), 2001.

 

However, according to Ray, the KMC has not followed the latest High Court

order. " The petitioner of the case is now thinking of taking steps under the

Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, against the municipal commissioner of KMC to

enforce the court's order to minimise this public health hazard, " he says.

 

The hazards from unauthorised slaughterhouses are principally those from the

waste generated from slaughter and the unhygienic meat produced. The waste

consists of vegetable matter such as rumen, dung and stomach contents and

animal matter including offal, tissues, meat trimmings and bones. City

environmentalists recognise the dangers from such waste if not properly

treated and disposed of.

 

" The meat produced from roadside shops is extremely unhygienic with a risk

of salmonella bacteria infecting people, " states Bonani Kakkar,

founder-member of PUBLIC (People United for a Better Living in Calcutta).

But the rule, she believes, needs to be followed by the people. " The issue

of the dangers posed by roadside meat shops is beyond the law and it is a

matter of public conscience, " she says.

 

According to her, the high court directive would be very difficult to

implement if consumers keep buying meat from illegal meat shops.

 

The danger of pollution from slaughterhouses is also highlighted by noted

environmentalist Subhas Dutta, who points out that untreated waste and blood

from slaughterhouses enters drains. " Rivers too are getting polluted due to

the dumping of slaughterhouse waste, " he says.

 

The KMC, however, maintains that action is being taken to curb the menace.

" The original notification was our own circular and we are dealing with it

seriously, " says the city mayor, Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya.

 

Bhattacharya admits that there has been some slackness in implementing the

1997 circular. He adds that this issue involves a lot of awareness on the

part of the public and that the Municipal Corporation Act of 1980 lays down

guidelines for slaughtering animals.

 

According to Section 427 of the Municipal Corporation Act, " no person shall,

without the general or special permission of the municipal commissioner,

sell any animal in any municipal market. " The Act, under Section 426, also

states that the mayor has the authority to close down any slaughterhouse in

a municipal area.

 

The issue of pollution by slaughterhouses also comes under the Environment

(Protection) Act of 1986 and the West Bengal Pollution Control Board is

trying to deal with the problem. " We have been working on the environmental

impact of slaughterhouses in this state since 1999, " says Bishwojit

Mukherjee, senior law officer, department of environment, West Bengal. " West

Bengal slaughters the maximum number of animals in India but there is not

even one organised slaughterhouse in the state. "

 

Perhaps, Ray argues, a contempt of court petition will jerk the KMC into

taking some concrete action to tackle the dangers posed by the unauthorised

meat shops.