Actress
Joanna Lumley yesterday urged Nepal to ban a ‘festival of slaughter’ in
which up to 250,000 terrified animals are killed.
They
are held in a giant open-air pen where their heads are hacked off in
full view of each other. The victims include buffalo, goats, chickens
and pigs. Some have their legs severed before they are decapitated.
The festival is held every five years to honour Hindu goddess Gadhimai and takes place at the end of November.
Millions cross the border from India to circumvent laws against animal sacrifice in their own country.
The
Nepalese government donated more than £36,000 towards the last Gadhimai
festival in 2009, but now campaigners from Compassion in World Farming
say the mass killing is opposed by the global Hindu community and that
there is no religious justification for it.
At a
rally outside the Nepalese Embassy in London yesterday, Ms Lumley said:
‘This inhumane event is not part of the mainstream Hindu faith.
'It is little more than a bloodlust which allows people to revel in the gory deaths of thousands of terrified creatures.’
The slaughtered animals are taken to
nearby villages and eaten in feasts. Devotees, pictured here during the
last festival in 2009, believe eating them wards away evil
Slaughter: A butcher wipes his knife
at the mass sacrifice ceremony at the Gadhimai temple. Up to 250,000
animals are killed in the festival every five years
The
star, who campaigned successfully for Nepalese Gurkha soldiers to be
allowed to settle in Britain, said: ‘I love Nepal – both the land and
its people.
'The Gadhimai festival entails horrendous suffering and is a complete anomaly in this wonderful country.’
Surya
Upadhya, chairman of the Nepalese Hindu Forum in the UK, said: ‘There
should not be any place for this barbaric sacrifice of innocent animals
in the name of any religion.’ DAILYMAIL.CO.UK
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