After PETA India and the Maidan Police helped rescue another horse from the Maidan, a first information report (FIR) was filed at the Maidan Police Station. A mare was discovered tied and without food or water. She was blind in one eye, and her physical state suggested that her previous owner had neglected her for a long time. According to veterinarians, she had excruciating chronic osteoarthritis and was malnourished. She was then taken to a sanctuary where she could recuperate and get pain relief. The mare died from a spinal injury last month after being discovered abandoned in a recumbent position at Maidan, apparently after being struck on the back with a blunt object.

According to Sections 125, 291, 325, read with 62 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS), the FIR was filed for careless behaviour involving the animal that likely endangered human life or could have resulted in serious injury, as well as for causing serious harm by disfiguring the animal. Additionally, this case invokes several provisions of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 1960, such as Section 3, 11(1)(a), 11(1)(f), and 11(1)(h), for failing to provide adequate food, water, and shelter, for neglecting the duty of care, and for unreasonably tethering the animal. Furthermore, crimes committed in furtherance of a common intention were cited under Section 3(5) of the BNS.

Chumki Dutta, an advocacy associate for PETA India, said, “No animal should be made to suffer for tourism. The cruelty that horses endure on the roads of Kolkata every day while transporting tourist carriages and when left stranded in the Maidan area is reflected in this rescue, which is not an isolated incident. We implore Hon. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to act swiftly to replace all carriage-pulling horses with heritage-style electric carriages”.

Following two upsetting instances of horse abuse in recent months, PETA India has filed two FIRs at the Bhowanipur and Maidan police stations. The first occurred after a distressing video of one of the two horses attached to a carriage collapsing on the road went viral on social media. The horse was malnourished and probably dehydrated and experiencing heat stroke. In the second, a mare was discovered dead and lying down. Furthermore, 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 the city’s horses are undernourished, anaemic, overworked, and afflicted with painful ailments.

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