Representing PETA India and Animal Rahat, a panel of India's most renowned equine veterinarians – who together have more than 32 years of experience addressing India's most challenging equine welfare issues – came together with Mumbai for Horses and People for Animals to make the case that the only way to stop the abuse and suffering of horses used to pull carriages through the streets of Mumbai and avoid the traffic hazards that they cause is to enact an all-out city-wide ban on Victorias. The experts also explained that passengers, drivers and pedestrians are injured and even killed when horse-drawn carriages are involved in accidents.

Three equine experts – Dr Manilal Valliyate, director of veterinary affairs for PETA India and member of the Animal Welfare Board of India; Dr Avinash Kumar, a leading equine veterinarian who has worked for The Brooke, an equine welfare charity; and Dr Chetan Yadav, an equine veterinarian and leading animal welfare specialist working for Animal Rahat – presented graphic, never-before-seen photos and video footage proving that keeping horse-drawn carriages on the roads would only ensure that the cycle of abuse continues.

Dr Valliyate explained that once horses lose function in a joint, as happens quickly when they're made to walk on pavement or haul heavy loads, more stress will be placed on their other joints, tendons and ligaments. No veterinary medicine or surgery can cure this condition, and it cannot be reversed. The equine veterinarians also pointed out that any move to issue licenses to the city's currently filthy, decrepit and illegal stables could subject the horses to various infectious diseases – such as glanders, strangles, tetanus and equine influenza – and cause many animals to die.

Horse used to haul a carriage despite painfully swollen joints.

Furthermore, despite an order from the Bombay High Court that nongovernmental organisations be permitted to inspect horses for signs of poor health or compromised welfare and report the matter to an executive health officer and despite holding written authorisation from the Animal Welfare Board of India – a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment and Forests – to conduct such an inspection, a team of equine veterinarians from PETA and Animal Rahat was harassed and prevented from conducting inspections of the horses used to haul carriages in Mumbai by the carriage owners and drivers and their lawyer.

Adding strength to the ongoing public interest litigation filed by the Animals and Birds Charitable Trust, an intervention application by PETA India has been accepted by the honourable High Court of Bombay. In recent years, PETA has gathered substantial evidence of cruelty to horses used for Victorias in Mumbai as well as the traffic risk that they pose to citizens. A number of the group's celebrity supporters, including Hema Malini, John Abraham and Jacqueline Fernandez, have backed its call for a ban on the Victorias.

"Forcing horses to haul tourists in carriages through congested traffic is already banned in Delhi, Paris, London, Toronto, Beijing and other cities", says PETA India Director of Veterinary Affairs Dr Manilal Valliyate. "Most tourists despise the cruelty to horses, and locals prefer forms of entertainment that do not harm animals. A ban on Victorias is necessary and inevitable."

Pushed past the point of exhaustion, horses often collapse when they are too worn out to continue and are repeatedly whipped in an effort to get them back on their feet. PETA decided to intervene in the wake of growing concerns from compassionate citizens regarding accidents in which horses have collapsed and even died. A carriage horse was critically injured after he collapsed because of exhaustion at Gateway of India in July 2012. Another horse died immediately after being hit by a taxi in front of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus that same month.

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