Viral Collapsed Horse Yet to be Seized by Kolkata Police Features on New PETA India Billboard Campaign
As horses continue to suffer while hauling tourist carriages in front of Victoria Memorial, PETA India has erected a powerful billboard nearby. The billboard features an image from a video that recently went viral, showing a weak, dehydrated horse collapsed on a Kolkata street while hitched to a tourist carriage. In the video, the handler cruelly slaps and yells at the horse. The billboard serves as a stark reminder to passersby of the inherent cruelty involved in the horse-drawn carriage trade. PETA India also hopes the billboard will lead to the seizure and rescue of the horse who collapsed and a transition to horse-free, heritage-style electric carriages as Mumbai has done.
In recent months, PETA India has filed two First Information Reports (FIRs) – one at Bhowanipur police station and another at Maidan police station – following two disturbing incidents of cruelty to horses. The first involved the horse featured on the billboard. The second concerned the death of a mare found abandoned and recumbent, which veterinarians attributed to a spinal injury, seemingly from being hit on the back with a blunt object. Despite this serious abuse, the horse who collapsed is yet to be seized.
The billboard is located opposite Victoria Memorial, SSKM hospital road, Bhowanipore, Kolkata, West Bengal, 700020.
In 2024 alone, at least eight horses were reported dead in Kolkata due to similar abuse and neglect, according to data gathered by PETA India and the CAPE Foundation. Investigations reveal that many horses used in the city are anaemic, malnourished, overworked, and suffer from painful conditions caused by constant use on hard road surfaces.
The Calcutta High Court took serious note of incidents in which horses collapsed at the Maidan and elsewhere in Kolkata due to poor health. The court also noted other issues such as the wide-scale prevalence of unlicensed hackney carriages in the city and the high rate of abandonment of ailing and unfit horses by their owners. The court directed the state government to develop a proposal for rehabilitating horse owners and providing them with an alternative livelihood to hauling tourists in carriages so that “dispensing with the horse-drawn carriages as done in Mumbai can be considered and examined for its feasibility.”
