PETA urges Env Ministry to include bestiality as cognisable offence

An animal rights body has asked the Environment Ministry to amend the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 1960 to include "bestiality" as a cognisable offence and introduce stronger penalties for cruelty to animals.

Bestiality refers to sexual intercourse between a person and an animal.

The demand by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India comes in the backdrop of recent reports which claimed that eight men gang raped a pregnant goat to death in Mewat town of Nuh in Haryana.

PETA India has shot off a letter to Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan, asking him to amend the PCA Act, 1960 to include bestiality as a cognisable offence.

It has also urged the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Law to retain criminalisation of bestiality sexual assault of an animal by a human being under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) while amending the current wording to decriminalise sexual acts between same-sex partners and between other consenting adults.

Recently, PETA India had worked with Nuh Superintendent of Police and Nagina police station's Station House Officer to get an FIR registered against the eight men.

"The fear and pain this goat must have felt during this horrific, depraved assault is hard to comprehend. According to the mental health and law enforcement authorities, people who commit acts of cruelty to animals often move on to hurting humans.

"PETA India is demanding that animals remain protected from sexual assault for their sake and for the sake of the community at large," said PETA India CEO Manilal Valliyate.

In the letter, the animal rights body said many recent cases of sexual abuse of animals by humans for which the accused were charged under Section 377 (unnatural offences) of the IPC signified the need for harsher penalties under the PCA Act, 1960.

It said the recent cases include arrest of a man in West Bengal for allegedly dragging a stray dog into his house and raping it, a security guard caught for regularly raping a resident female stray dog in a washroom, a video footage of a murder accused committing sexual assault on a goat and a carpenter arrested by police sexually abusing a dog in Kerala.

It said in Madhya Pradesh in separate incidents two men, aged 25 years and 50 years, were arrested and charged for raping a cow, and an 18-year-old boy from Delhi was charged for committing bestiality with a calf.

In a study of domestic violence victims, 60 per cent of the women said their abusive partners had harmed or killed their dogs or other animals, the PETA India added.