INVITE: Mumbai Stops Use of Bulls to Haul Ice Following PETA India Intervention, Ceremony to Hand Over Keys of Motorised Vehicles to Be Held

For Immediate Release:

29 March 2022

Contact:

Hiraj Laljani; [email protected]

Sachin Bangera; [email protected]

Mumbai – In exchange for the surrender of the final five bullocks who were being used to haul ice in Mumbai, Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Deputy Speaker Narhari Zirwal will hand over the keys to two commercial three-wheeler vehicles and two commercial four-wheeler mini-trucks – courtesy of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India – to former bullock cart owners at a celebration on 30 March. PETA India has arranged for the bullocks to live out the rest of their lives at a sanctuary in Sangli.

When:          Wednesday, 30 March, 11:30 am

Where:         Pranjal Auto, Shop no 3, Manthan Darshi Complex, near SBI ATM, Datta Mandir Road, Malad East, Mumbai 400097

“No animal should be forced to haul heavy carts, leading to exhaustion and risking traffic accidents and serious injury,” says PETA India Chief Executive Officer Dr Manilal Valliyate. “PETA India applauds the former bullock cart owners and the Sonawala Ice Factory for switching to cruelty-free modes of transportation, and we look forward to seeing these bullocks enjoy the rest of their lives at a spacious sanctuary.”

Bullocks are often forced to work even when sick or injured. Handlers use whips and painful nose ropes to force them to haul heavy carts as the bullocks struggle, breathing heavily and frothing at the mouth. The animals are denied access to proper nutrition, adequate water, and shade from the blazing sun. They are typically worked until death and receive no veterinary care for painful common health concerns, such as wounds, abscesses, muscle and joint ailments, cancer, blindness, and yoke gall.

PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – notes that former animal-drawn cart owners and families are now benefitting from the group’s mechanisation project. Using motorised vehicles instead of animals has dramatically increased their earnings and enhanced their social and economic status. The motor vehicles allow former bullock and horse-drawn cart owners to avoid road restriction that apply to animal carts and the disruption to their livelihood caused when animals are so sick or injured they simply cannot work.

PETA India opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA India, please visit PETAIndia.com or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

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