Karur: At least 110 persons including more than 80 bull fighters injured in four different jallikattu event (bull fight) in Karur, Pudukkottai and Tiruchy districts, where in which hundreds of bulls and bull fighters took part, on Thursday.
About 15 persons were injured in a jallikattu event at Rachandarthirumalai village in Karur district on Thursday. All of them were treated at the medical camp at the event site itself.
Karur Collector T. Anbazhagan inaugurated the event in the presence of Dr S.K. Mittal, Convener, Animal Welfare Board of India’s Jallikattu inspection committee, New Delhi, and others.
Official sources told DC that 487 bulls and 287 bull fighters from different parts of the state participated in jallikattu held all over the state.
Seventy-one bull fighters were injured in other jallikattu events at Avvarangadu near Tiruchy, of which seven were admitted to the government hospital, Manapparai, and the rest were treated at the site itself.
Tiruchy Collector K. Rajamani, Superintendent of police, Ziaul Haque, and others flagged off the event.
More than 17 persons were injured in two different jallikkattu events held at Vanniyanvidhuthi and Mangadevanpatti villages in Pudukkottai district.
In Madurai, several bull tamers were injured in the bull taming sport on Thursday with great fanfare as part of Pongal festivities which began on January 15.
At the bustling hamlet of Alanganallur near here, a popular venue for the sport, 800 bull tamers pitted their skills against 900 bulls, in the presence of several hundreds of spectators.
Gifts worth lakhs of rupees were given to those who succeeded in taming the bulls, and also those bull owners whose animals could not be tamed. Many bull tamers were injured in the events, police added.
Other rural sporting events like bullock cart rallies were also held in several villages.
In Coimbatore, traditional village dances like ‘Oyilattam’ was held and heritage musical instruments were played so that people could get to have a glimpse of those instruments used in bygone eras.
Jallikattu had already been conducted at Palamedu (Madurai) and Periya Suriyoor (Tiruchirappalli), famous for the bull taming sport, on Wednesday and at Avaniapuram (Madurai) on Tuesday, coinciding with the Pongal festival.
Usually, temple bulls are first sent through the ‘Vaadi Vasal’, the entrance to the sporting arena as part of prayers for a good harvest and prosperity, and in keeping with tradition, such animals are not caught by the tamers.
Several events centred on rural sports and folk arts were also held across Tamil Nadu by the tourism department as part of the Pongal celebrations.
