The people of a village in Kerala’s Ernakulam district were forced to take gun after the police, fearing backlash, refused to shoot a cow affected by rabies, reported Malayala Manorama.
The incident happened in Muvattupuzha and the police’s refusal to shoot the cow left the people anxious about the disease spreading to humans. Finally, they took the gun and shot at the ailing cow, the newspaper reported.
The five-year-old cow showed symptoms of rabies and the chief veterinary surgeon confirmed the disease. Later, a recommendation to allow mercy killing was sent to the district collector as the village had high population density, which increased the chances of the disease spreading to humans.
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When contacted by Outlook, sources in the Muvattupuzha police admitted that they did fear backlash as the place has some active animal lovers’ groups. Also, the circle inspector (CI) of Muvattupuzha, C Jayakumar, had earlier faced “action by a central agency” for shooting a buffalo affected by rabies when he was posted in Kothamangalam in 2008.
However, when contacted by Outlook the CI said, “The newspaper report is wrong to say that we refused to fire the cow. The arms and ammunition given to police can only be used with written orders and we had not got any written order to fire the cow.”
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He said the police had inspected the cow at the stable where it was tied.
