New Delhi (CNN) – A man in India died after being attacked by his rooster … when he was on his way to a cockfight.
Saripalli Chanavenkateshwaram Rao, 50, was wounded in the neck by a blade tied to the crow’s foot on January 15. A police spokesman told CNN that the man, the father of three children, was taken to the hospital, where he later died of a stroke.
Rao, who lived in the village of Pragadavaram, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, in southern India, was a regular in local cockfights and was on his way to enroll the rooster in a competition when he tried to break free, he said. the official of the Kranti Kumar station.
Cockfight in India, archive image. (Photo credit should read BIJU BORO / AFP via Getty Images)
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Cockfighting has been illegal in India since 1960. However, the use of animals in similar events remains a problem in the country, according to Gauri Maulekhi, administrator of the India for People Foundation.
“The crimes have been made very clear and have been explained to the district and state authorities, but they choose to turn a blind eye. It is not only for entertainment that these animals are forced to fight, but also because of the strong bets and gambling that occur in relation to these events, ”said Maulekhi.
Kumar said the local cockfight went ahead without any arrest.
A ruling from the Supreme Court of India in 2014 made clear the illegality of animal fighting under the country’s Animal Cruelty Prevention Act. In 2015, Maulekhi used that sentence to intervene in a request from a state court to lift the cockfighting ban, and the ban was confirmed.
“I do not think that culture has anything to do with it: it is purely a game of money and hysteria takes over, reason and logic simply go to the background in such a way that neither the welfare of the animal nor the welfare of people are enough to stop it, ”said Maulekhi.
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