Begusarai Temple Wins PETA India Award for Abolishing Archaic and Cruel Animal Sacrifice
For Immediate Release:
4 October 2022
Contact:
Monica Chopra; [email protected]
Hiraj Laljani; [email protected]
Patna – A Progressive Institution Award is on the way from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India to Maa Durga Temple Pushpalata Ghosh Charitable Trust in recognition of its progressive initiative to replace cruel animal sacrifice with alms of fruits and vegetables at Maa Durga Temple in Begusarai in Bihar. The award has been granted to the trust for encouraging compassionate worship – a move that will protect animals from being killed in painful ways during sacrifice while they are still conscious and able to feel pain.
A copy of the award si available upon request.
“Compassion and love are universal messages at the core of all religions, and no religion teaches or encourages cruelty to animals,” says PETA India Manager of Vegan Projects Dr Kiran Ahuja. “PETA India commends Maa Durga Temple Pushpalata Ghosh Charitable Trust for ensuring that this place of worship reflects the values of our evolved and modern society and hopes more religious institutions will follow their lead.”
Every year, thousands of animals, including goats, buffaloes, and chickens, are killed during religious occasions such as ul-Adha, Dussehra, and Durga Puja. In defiance of the laws regarding animal transport, many animals slated for sacrifice are crammed into severely crowded trucks, which routinely causes suffocation and broken bones. During sacrifice, untrained people typically cut open the animals’ throats or decapitate them in full view of other terrified animals without first stunning them – a mandatory but often ignored legal requirement for animals killed in licensed slaughterhouses.
Recently, numerous members of Parliament backed PETA India’s appeal to Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Shri Parshottam Rupala calling for the deletion of Section 28 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, which states, “Nothing contained in this Act shall render it an offence to kill any animal in a manner required by the religion of any community.”
Many states, including Gujarat, Kerala, Puducherry, and Rajasthan, already have laws in place which prohibit the religious sacrifice of any animal in any temple or its precincts. The states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Telangana prohibit it in any place of public religious worship or adoration or its precinct or in any congregation or procession connected with religious worship in a public street.
PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals 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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