In a journey too cruel to imagine, livestock are forced to walk so far that their hooves are worn down to bloody stumps. If the traffickers have trucks, to keep them standing to make room chilies are forced into their eyes for the entire journey, till their eventual death. For days a cow may not be able to sit, eat drink or sleep as a chilli lodged in her eye burns it into submission. Her tail is broken; she is beaten, gouged and trampled only for her journey to end with her being skinned alive right after her legs are hacked off.
This is the most inhuman and cruel end to millions of cattle in India. A country where cows are meant to be revered, yet in reality are so brutally treated.
The government turns a blind eye, and refuses to regulate the industry. Much of the abuse stems from the fact that the trade in and slaughter of cows is almost entirely underground and illegal - but the authorities which should be stopping it are routinely bribed to let it continue.
The slaughter of cows has been banned in some states, but not all. All this has created in secrete abattoirs, but even worse the trafficking of cattle from no slaughter zones to slaughter zones where it is legal.
Trafficking is huge, Cattle going to West Bengal go by truck and train and they go by the millions. The law says you cannot transport more than 4 per truck but they are putting in up to 70. When they go by train, each wagon is supposed to hold 80 to 100, but they cram in up to 90, and up 400 or 500 of them came out dead.
It's a hideous journey. To keep them moving, drivers beat the animals across their hip bones, where there is no fat to cushion the blows. The cows are not allowed to rest or drink. Many cows sink to their knees. Drivers beat them and twist their battered tails to force them to rise. If that doesn't work they torment the cows into moving by lodging hot chilli peppers and tobacco into their eyes."
When they finally make it to the slaughterhouses, the end they confront is unspeakable. In Kerala they also have a unique way of killing them - they beat their heads to a pulp with a dozen hammer blows.
Greed, poverty, ignorance and absence of regulation and supervision have brought India's cows to the point where their treatment is on the edge of becoming a major international scandal.
Demand India to regulate the transport of cattle and to stop the cruel treatment of the animals they are meant to hold dear.
