A man was killed by a rooster with a blade attached to his leg during an illegal cockfight in southern India, police said, highlighting a practice that continues in some Indian states despite a decades-old ban.
The cock, with a 7 cm knife tied to its leg, vibrated in panic and cut its owner, Thangulla Satish, 45, in the groin last week, said Police Inspector B. Jeevan on Sunday.
The incident occurred in the village of Lothunur, in the state of Telangana.
According to Jeevan, Satish was injured while preparing the cock for a fight. “Satish was hit by the cock knife in the groin and started to bleed a lot,” said the policeman, adding that the man died on the way to a hospital.
Jeevan said the police filed a lawsuit and was looking for more than a dozen people involved in organizing the cockfight. If guilt is proven, organizers can be jailed for up to two years.
Cockfights are common in the southern Indian states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, despite a national ban imposed in 1960. Animal rights activists have long been asking to control illegal practice, which is organized mainly as part of the local Hindu festivals. with the presence of hundreds of people, although the crowds sometimes reach thousands. Cockfights are usually held under the watchful eye of powerful local politicians and involve large sums of money for betting.
Last year, a man was killed when a blade attached to his bird’s paw hit him in the neck during a cockfight in Andhra Pradesh. In 2010, a rooster killed its owner by cutting its jugular vein in the state of West Bengal.
According to the police, the rooster involved in last week’s incident was among many other roosters prepared for the cockfighting betting festival in the village of Lothunur.
As the practice continues, a knife, blade or other sharp-edged weapon is tied to a bird’s leg to injure its rival. These fights continue until one competitor dies or runs away, and the other rooster is declared the winner.
Jeevan said the rooster was taken to the police station before being taken to a local farm. “We may need to present it to the court,” he said.
Images of the rooster tied with rope and pecking grains at the police station were widely seen on social media.