IMPHAL: The Thoubal unit of People for Animals (PFA) made the shocking disclosure that a food outlet at the ongoing Manipur Sangai Festival has on offer an array of dishes made from the meat of rare wild animals like boar (wild pig) and porcupine.
Members of PFA, Thoubal, who carried out a brief survey at the festival venue on Saturday, found that the stall-owners were selling porcupine and wild boar meat openly at the festival for Rs 100 a plate of five to six pieces.
"This shameful act is being carried out in the open at the Sangai festival. We don't know how the festival organizers, who are responsible officials of the state government, granted permission to the stall-owners to sell the meat of endangered species," said Lourembem Bishwajit, managing trustee of PFA, Thoubal.
"We have even procured samples of what is being claimed to be porcupine and wild boar meat from the stall-owners as documentary evidence. If the matter turns serious, we will send them to experts for confirmation after consulting forest authorities," Bishwajit said. Not only does the stall banner mention that the menu offers the meat of the rare animals, the names of the animals in question are also mentioned in the thermo-flasks at the stall and the owners were seen serving the meat to people openly, he said.
"The festival is named after the rare and endangered Sangai (brow-antlered deer), but this doesn't mean that other endangered animals' dishes can be sold in the open at the fair. This shows that the stall-owners and festival organizers do not want to protect and conserve wild animals. The foreigners who are attending the festival will have a dreadful impression of Manipur and its people," Bishwajit said.
Wild boar and porcupine are listed in schedules III and IV respectively of the endangered animals of the country under the Protection of Wildlife Act, 1972, he said. He appealed to the forest department to take immediate action against the stall-owners and festival organizers.
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