Tamil Nadu: An animal lover from Chennai spoke to local media platforms addressing how unsafe the city is for stray animals and claimed the prevalence of flesh trade of roadside cats. He mentioned himself to be an eye witness to a night time activity involving people kidnapping homeless cats, stuffing them into huge sacks, and allegedly selling them to roadside non-veg hotels and biryani shops, and restaurants. Shocked by what he observed on a night, he revealed the entire scenario and asked police to intervene and take necessary action for the welfare of the animals and society at large.
In the video interview, the person identified himself as a college student named Joshua and narrated the scene from a shocking night. He said (translated from Tamil), "At midnight I saw a man loading bags after bags into a vehicle. By the time I could approach him, he shifted the bags to a shady corner to hide them. When I confronted him, he mentioned about having come there to catch cats."
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Man escapes spot after being caught red-handed
Joshua further stated that the man no sooner pushed him away and escaped from the site, but he managed to chase him for about three kilometres and dig into some truth behind the incident.
The animal lover was shocked to see that the man who escaped from the earlier spot was spotted doing the same act without any guilt at another place. This left Joshua shocked. On asking the man why he involved in kidnapping stray cats, Joshua didn't initially receive a direct reply. It was learned that the cat catcher asked for Rs 100 to free each cat while mentioning that to be his "job."
10-15 stray cats mercilessly stuffed inside a sack
Joshua told the media that he couldn't stay calm over the issue and also went to the streets the next day where he found about 10-15 cats kidnapped and stuffed inside a sack, which he freed later.
"There is huge gang involved in this. They either sell these cats to roadside shops and consume it themselves (as an alternative of regular meat)," Joshua said in the video while adding, "Such illegal activities are taking place at night... If this goes on, one must rethink if the city is safe."
Request to police and concerned officials
He requested the police and departments involved in animal welfare to look into the matter. The incident surfaced from the Kilpauk area in Egmore (now Elumbur), Chennai.
Only find cats in cartoons or zoo in future?
Further commenting on the issue, he suggested that if such activities against stray animals aren't stopped, society might lose the animals forever. "In future, children might only see cats in cartoons or at a zoo," he said while urging citizens to not hurt the creatures and raising voice against animal cruelty.
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