People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India has put up a strong billboard close to the Victoria Memorial, where horses are still suffering while pulling tourist carriages. The billboard shows a picture from a recently viral video of a weak, dehydrated horse that was hitched to a tourist carriage and collapsed on a street in Kolkata. The handler slaps and yells at the horse inhumanely in the video. Passersby are starkly reminded of the inherent cruelty of the horse-drawn carriage trade by the billboard. In addition, PETA India hopes that the billboard will result in the rescue and capture of the collapsed horse as well as the adoption of heritage-style electric carriages that do not require horses, as has been done in Mumbai.

The billboard is located opposite Victoria Memorial, SSKM hospital road, Bhowanipore, Kolkata, West Bengal, 700020.

According to PETA India Advocacy Associate Chumki Dutta, “Horses pay the price for a few minutes of so-called entertainment for humans. We implore Hon. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to ensure that all horses are retired to secure sanctuaries and to replace antiquated and inhumane horse-drawn carriages with heritage-style electric carriages”.

Following two upsetting instances of horse abuse in recent months, PETA India has filed two First Information Reports (FIRs), one at the Bhowanipur police station and one at the Maidan police station. The first had to do with the billboard’s horse. Veterinarians attributed the second mare’s death, which occurred after she was discovered abandoned and lying down, to a spinal injury that appeared to have resulted from being struck on the back with a blunt object. The collapsed horse has not yet been seized despite this severe abuse.

According to data collected by PETA India and the CAPE Foundation, at least eight horses were reported dead in Kolkata in 2024 alone as a result of similar abuse and neglect. According to investigations, a large number of city horses are underweight, anaemic, overworked, and afflicted with painful conditions brought on by continuous use on hard road surfaces.

The incidents of horses collapsing at the Maidan and other locations in Kolkata due to poor health were taken seriously by the Calcutta High Court. Other problems mentioned by the court included the high number of unlicensed hackney carriages in the city and the frequent abandonment of sick and unfit horses by their owners. In order for dispensing with the horse-drawn carriages as done in Mumbai to be considered and examined for its feasibility, the court ordered the state government to create a plan for rehabilitating horse owners and giving them a source of income other than transporting tourists in carriages.

Priyanka Dutta