This, despite the HC banning slaughter anywhere except in licenced slaughterhouses
Though the State administration and police took effective action to prevent illegal slaughter of animals in temples across the State, the State machinery failed to prevent blatant violation of the law with thousands of buffaloes and goats being slaughtered illegally across the State on the occasion of Eid, said the authorised slaughterhouse inspector of the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) for Uttarakhand, Gauri Maulekhi. Maulekhi inspected various locations in Dehradun notorious for illegal animal slaughter on Monday and wrote to the State Food Safety Commissioner Om Prakash and principal secretary, Home, MH Khan about the blatant violation of the law on this festive occasion. The Uttarakhand High Court has already banned animal slaughter anywhere except in licensed slaughterhouses.
She writes to the senior bureaucrats that at Inamullah building in Dehradun, where not a single shop is licensed to sell meat or slaughter animals under the Food Safety and Standards Act, a record number of animals were slaughtered on Monday. "About 700 buffaloes and 2,000 goats have been slaughtered while the police or the Food Safety officers could do nothing. Numerous cows were seen being taken into the Shalimar Hotel lane but no police officer checked the same for fear of life hence the fate of these animals is unknown. Children as young as five years old were involved in the process of butchery and could be seen handling sharp weapons. Blood and gastrointestinal matter was drained untreated into the household sewage which is dumped into the Rispana river. At Khushalpur village in Sahaspur area, not a single place is licensed as a slaughterhouse or a meat shop, 3000 buffaloes and 7,000 goats were slaughtered in the open fields, on the Tonk riverbed or inside homes,"
she states. The AWBI authorised slaughterhouse inspector states, "I have observed that police is extremely hesitant and afraid to even venture into these illegal slaughterhouses. Protection is given to a particular community to conduct slaughter and any objection raised by neighbours under sections 268, 269, 277, 278, 295A or 429 are suppressed deliberately. The same police department has been able to curb illegal animal sacrifice in temples across Uttarakhand, but failed to curb illegal slaughter on Eid. The most shocking observation is that of fear of minority outrage within the home department due to which they are allowed to flout the law."