All religions call for compassion, no religion requires killing or eating animals, and hacking animals to death with weapons is just plain cruel. The state governments have a duty to uphold and enforce India's animal-protection laws, and PETA India is calling on the authorities to prohibit the cutting of animals' throats by untrained people in the street.

-Meet Ashar, PETA India Emergency Response Coordinator.

In its letter, PETA India pointed out that – through orders dated Feb 17 2017 and Apr 10 2017 on two matters regarding the sacrifice and killing of animals for meat – the Supreme Court ruled that animals can be slaughtered only in officially licensed slaughterhouses and that municipal authorities must ensure compliance with this ruling.

The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Slaughter House) Rules, 2001, and the Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Regulations, 2011, permit the slaughter of animals for food only in registered or licensed slaughterhouses equipped with species-specific stunning equipment.

The Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards and Food Additives) Regulations, 2011, also prohibit killing camels for meat, a prevalent practice during Bakrid. And the Transport of Animals Rules, 1978, are also frequently violated during this festival.

PETA India noted that thousands of goats, buffaloes, camels, and other animals are killed during festivals such as Bakrid (which takes place on Aug 21 and 22 this year), Dussehra, Durga Puja, and Bali Pratha.

Common illegal practices during these holidays include cramming animals into severely crowded trucks – which routinely causes suffocation and broken bones –breaking  animals' tails and beating them to keep them moving while marching them to the place of sacrifice, and slaughter by untrained people who slit animals' throats with dull knives in full view of one another.

Image: PETA India/Facebook