Sir — This refers to the article, “Unspeakable acts of cruelty” (September 21) by Hiranmay Karlekar. Knowing the chicken industry so well, I can safely say that little or nothing can be done to prevent the cruelty on poor beings. Of course, every effort should be made to reduce the agony human beings inflict on the chickens but the root of this nightmare is the consumer. Billions of non-vegetarian consumers require hundreds of billions of chickens. People who care will quit eating chickens and that is the first step in the effort to try to do ‘something’ to help these birds who are at our mercy.