Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi on Thursday attacked his cabinet colleague and Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar saying that the latter’s ministry was frivolously granting permission to kill innocent animals.
Gandhi told ANI that the ‘lust’ to kill did not make sense to her when she was asked to comment on the reports of large number of deer being killed in Patna in Bihar.
She said, “The Environment Ministry here is writing to every state asking them which animal they want to kill and they will grant permission. In Bengal they gave permission to kill elephants, in Himachal they gave permission to kill monkeys, in Goa they gave permission to kill peacocks.
“In Chandrapur where the condition is so adverse that they have already killed 53 wild boars and permission to kill 50 more has been given. Environment Ministries own wildlife department said that they don’t want to kill animals and should not be pressurised for the same. I don’t understand this lust for killing.”
Gandhi said that the local residents did not want to kill deer, so “to complete the task the environment ministry had to hire shooters from a different state.”
“The shooters hail from a family which comes from Hyderabad and they roam around the nation and kill animals. Such incident has taken place first time in Bihar. Such a massacre has never taken place, where Deers which is a protected animal in huge numbers have been killed,” said Gandhi.
Meanwhile in Goa, a call was made to cull India’s national bird peacock citing the reason that the bird was creating a problem for farmers and are destroying their cultivation in rural areas.
When asked to comment, Javdekar said that his ministry had allowed the killing based on the recommendations from the state.
He said, “It is on the recommendation of state governments and also it’s an old law.”