Chennai:
Demanding a ban on jallikattu, the bull-taming sport of Tamil Nadu, animal rights advocacy group PETA on Tuesday claimed a bull died after it was hit by a bus at Madurai on Monday when it ran frantically away from the venue after participants chased it.
People for Ethical Treatment of Animals also claimed that bull-taming, a signature event held in Madurai and nearby areas as part of the harvest festival Pongal, was being held in violation of court guidelines with the animals being "tortured" and "provoked".
"Inspectors authorised by Animal Welfare Board of India report that during the jallikattu held at Avaniyapuram in Madurai on Monday, a bull died from head-on collision with a moving bus because of the absence of a contained collection area for bulls," a PETA statement said.
This was in "violation" of the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court guidelines, that were intended to regulate jallikattu, it said.
The bull had met with the accident after running frantically away from jallikattu participants who had been "chasing and deliberately agitating the animal," it said.
"Other panicked bulls also ran from the jallikattu area on to the main road in the midst of oncoming traffic.
The inspectors reported that no veterinarians could be found at the scene of the death and also witnessed cruelties, such as a person biting the tail of a bull, other people poking bulls with knives and twisting their tailbones and organisers poking and beating animals with wooden sticks and forcing fluids, likely liquor, down the bulls' throats," it alleged.
Holding that Supreme court guidelines on proper barricading were also "flouted", PETA demanded Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's intervention in banning the sport, "since it puts both animals' and people's lives at risk."
Fifty five people were injured in two incidents when jallikattu was in progress at Avaniyapuram on Monday.