Yet another person was gored to death by bulls in a Jallikkattu event held in Tiruchirappalli district on Saturday. Manapparai police station officials confirmed that one person was killed in the bull taming event held at Kalingappetti village which comes under its jurisdiction. 21 spectators were also injured in the event.
Ranjit (22) was one of the 243 bull tamers who took part in the event. According to Dhanakakshmi, Tahasildar, who was in charge of the area, the bull tamer died on the spot though the administration had deployed medical units and ambulances. Tamil Nadu minister Valarmathi, district collector Rajaram, Tiruchirappalli lok Sabha member P Kumar and other officials were present during the gory incident.
The bull taming held in Namakkal district on Saturday resulted in13 persons getting injured, some of them seriously, when bulls charged into the spectators. With the death of Ranjit on Saturday, the number of persons who got killed in this year’s Jallikkattu events touched six which means that on an average one person has been killed every day since the rural festival was kick started on last Sunday in Madurai district. The number of persons injured in the last six days of the events have crossed 200.
Neither the Tamil Nadu government nor the Animal Welfare Board of India , the agency entrusted with the safety of the events have reacted to the fatalities till Saturday. There are reports that the bulls are reluctant to come out of the vaadiassal (narrow passage to the arena) once they see the surging crowd of tamers. “I got a first hand information from a veterinarian that the bulls are forced out of the vaadivassal by beating up them with rods and spikes. The bulls become violent when they are tortured and that’s how the people get killed,” one of the animal right activists told The Pioneer.