Animal traffickers grow bold, fire in air to scare activists

Bengaluru: Animal traffickers fired in the air and tried to attack animal rights activists, who were chasing them, near Electronic City flyover, on Tuesday night. The police, instead of booking the violators of law, filed an FIR with charges of attempt to murder against the activists. The police, trying to brush off the incident, later said that there was no law and order problem reported from the Parappana Agrahara police station limits in the South East division, under which Electronic City Flyover falls, on Tuesday night.

The activists, who had information that three trucks carrying cows and buffaloes were speeding on the Elevated Expressway, gave the traffickers a hot chase. Near the toll gate, one of the men in the trucks, Sadiq Pasha, shot in the air.

Scared that Pasha would shoot at them next, the activists fought with him. They immediately called the police as the situation was getting out of control. But the police officials who arrived at the spot arrested the 11 animal rights volunteers, and produced them before a magistrate, who remanded them to judicial custody. They were sent to the central prison the same night.

In the FIR, the police have shown Pasha and the truck cleaner, Munna, as complainants, said Josine of the Gau Gyan Foundation, which was behind the effort to rescue the animals.

“Strangely, the police have made me the prime accused. The FIR also states that I attacked Pasha and Munna at the Electronic City Tollgate. In fact, when the fracas was happening near the tollgate, I was at Mathigiri police station, 20 kilometers away from Hosur lodging a complaint against other trucks that were trafficking cattle,” Josine told Deccan Chronicle.

She said that the police also released the three trucks, bearing registration numbers KA-41-A-3387, KA-41-47 and KA-41-4329, from the police station and allowed them to proceed with their journey, she said.

DCP, South East Division, Rohini Katoch Sepat, told Deccan Chornicle, “There were no gunshots fired. It is a story concocted by the animal activists who took law into their own hands.”

Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Alok Kumar too denied the shooting incident. “A driver and cleaner of a truck, which was carrying cattle, were attacked by a group of people and we have taken up a case,” he said.