Animal groups and border police save over 700 animals from sacrifice at Nepal’s Gadhimai festival

Bihar, India: Animal charities Humane Society International/India, People for Animals, Sneha’s Care and the Federation of Animal Welfare of Nepal have condemned today’s mass animal sacrifice at the Gadhimai festival in Nepal as “an appalling bloodbath” and urged the Nepali government to take action to make this the last Gadhimai festival where animals are killed. HSI/India, PFA and the border police managed to confiscate and save from slaughter more than 700 animals being illegally transported across the border into Nepal from India.

Held every five years in Bariyarpur village in the Bara district of Nepal, the Gadhimai festival is estimated to see as many as 500,000 animals killed by the time it ends. The killing began in the early hours of this morning when close to 6,000 buffaloes were beheaded in the arena, and thousands of goats, pigeons and more killed outside. It is expected to continue tomorrow with the killing of thousands more goats, as part of an historic ritual to appease the goddess Gadhimai.

Humane Society International/India and People for Animals deployed teams to the Indo-Nepal border checkpoints more than a week prior to the sacrifice, to assist border police in intercepting and confiscating animals illegally transported for slaughter. Their combined efforts saved the lives of more than 700 animals―69 buffaloes, 325 goats, 328 pigeons and two chickens.

The newborn and infant goats needing immediate or specialist treatment will receive life-long care at Happy Home Sanctuary run by HSI/India’s partners PFA Uttarakhand; permanent homes are being found for the buffaloes and chickens while the pigeons have been safely released back into the wild. Despite this, estimates from buffalo entry receipts and eyewitness accounts are that between 250,000 – 500,000 animals could be slaughtered across the two days.

Arkaprava Bahar, Humane Society International/India’s senior manager of campaigns, who led animal rescue efforts at the border, said: “We rescued buffaloes from the back of trucks, goats smuggled in scarves on the back of motorbikes, chickens strung upside by their feet on the side of vehicles and baskets and boxes of pigeons. The suffering these animals endure is so upsetting and so unnecessary. They have been put through exhausting journeys, many weak from lack of food, water and rest, only to be thrust into the mayhem of Gadhimai where all around them they see other animals being slaughtered. I’ve never seen anything as upsetting and disturbing as what I have witnessed at the Gadhimai sacrifice. The scale of the animal killing is unfathomable, there are animals being beheaded everywhere you look and pools of bright red blood on the ground wherever you tread. Animals such as buffaloes and goats are sensitive, sentient creatures very much aware of what’s happening around them. It must be a terrifying ordeal. This appalling bloodbath must end.

It’s some comfort to know that we and the border forces were able to save hundreds of precious animals from such cruelty. They will now live happy lives being cared for at partner shelters. Every buffalo, goat and pigeon we saved is precious, but we urge the government of Nepal to take decisive action to ensure that in future we have a bloodless Gadhimai.”

Prior to the border work, HSI/India and PFA held a press conference with spiritual teacher and author Acharya Prashant who encouraged devotees to celebrate the festival with compassion and to honour traditions without harming animals. Prashant said: “Devotion should inspire compassion, not cruelty. Slaughtering animals in the name of the divine diminishes the spirit of worship. Let us honour the Goddess by upholding the sanctity of all life during Gadhimai.”

HSI/India teams also conducted door-to-door awareness campaigns and distributed around 3,500 local language pamphlets in 12 villages near the Indo-Nepal border, urging devotees not to sacrifice their animals.

Sneha Shrestha, founder of Sneha’s Care and president of the Federation of Animal Welfare of Nepal, said: “The local government has been intimidating journalists, NGOs and anyone calling for a stop to the sacrifice, violating the rights to free communication. The local government along with the central government has also failed to support the campaign as promised. This year the festival management committee has increased the height of the wall around the compound area where the sacrifices take place and have deployed police forces around the compound. The government in Nepal has had five years to comply with the Supreme Court judgment banning sacrifice but it has failed to take any action and instead has promoted the sacrifice.”

HSI/India and PFA have been working since 2014 to stop animal sacrifice at Gadhimai. There were an estimated more than 500,000 animals killed in 2009 and around 250,000 animals in both 2014 and 2019. Ahead of the 2024 sacrifice, the Gadhimai Temple urged devotees to bring animal sacrifice numbers back up to 500,000.

In 2014, the Supreme Court of India took a significant step to curb this practice by directing the Indian government to prevent the illegal transport of animals across the border into Nepal for sacrifice at Gadhimai. The court also called upon animal protection organizations, including HSI/India, PFA and others, to formulate an action plan to ensure its orders, which HSI/India has implemented ever since, were effectively enforced. Subsequently, in September 2019, the Supreme Court of Nepal ordered an end to live animal sacrifices at Gadhimai and urged authorities to create a plan to phase out this practice nationwide, but this has been widely ignored.

Facts

The Gadhimai festival involves a month-long celebration or “mela,” culminating in the ritual slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals.

Water buffalo, goats, chickens, pigs, ducks and rats are decapitated with blunt metal swords in an alcohol-fueled killing frenzy.

The majority of these animals are illegally transported from India into Nepal owing to porous borders.

This rule is being openly flouted as the majority of animals are transported illegally across the border without an export license.

Mass sacrifice events pose serious public health risks, exacerbated by the unsanitary conditions at the festival site. With no toilets for millions of pilgrims, the air is filled with the stench of feces, blood and death.

The origins of Gadhimai date back around 265 years, when the founder of the Gadhimai Temple, Bhagwan Chowdhary, had a dream that the goddess Gadhimai wanted blood in return for freeing him from prison, protecting him from evil and promising prosperity and power. The goddess asked for a human sacrifice, but Chowdhary offered an animal instead and this has been repeated every five years since.

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