Big fish jump in to slam, support camel herders detained by cops

Nagpur: The camel seizure case of Amravati now has high profile activists and politicians jumping into the fray.
Last week, police near Dhamangaon town seized 58 camels and booked the herders for cruelty to animals, which had walked from Kutch district in Gujarat 1,200 km away. The herders are Rabaris — a pastoral community from Gujarat. The complaint by a 71-year-old activist from Hyderabad, Jasraj Rupchand, says the animals were being taken there for slaughter.Having migrated from Gujarat, the Rabaris can also be found in Vidarbha. They rear sheep and use camels for transport, leading a semi-nomadic life.
As the herders are now fighting in court to get back possession of the camels, which they claim are starving in a cow shelter, big names have taken interest in the case.
Lok Sabha member and animal rights activist Maneka Gandhi had apparently called up senior police officials to review the case. A video of Navneet Rana, MP from Amravati, is also seen, where she appreciates cops for ‘saving camels being taken to Hyderabad for slaughter’. She says camels are endangered with not more than 20,000 left in the country.
Gandhi told TOI that the camels were caught at Yavatmal border, from where they were to be taken to Hyderabad via Adilabad. “There is a large racket and the syndicate is run from Bagpath in Uttar Pradesh. The camels are also taken to Bangladesh. There is no question of having so many camels together,” she said.
Gandhi says the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has notified that camel meat is not food. The animals cannot be slaughtered for meat.
Some leaders have also supported the Rabaris. Vinod Chavda, BJP MP from Kutch, wrote to the Amravati collector that Rabaris are nomadic tribe and rear camels for transport. Dr Vikas Mahatme, BJP’s Rajya Sabha member and leader of Dhangars, a community of shepherds of Maharashtra, has also backed the Rabaris.
A similar letter has come from member of National Commission from Women Dr Rajulaben Desai, who hails from Deesa in Kutch. The gram panchayat of Makardhokra village in Umred tehsil too has endorsed that the Rabaris are living there, and named some of them who own camels. Three panchayats in Kutch too have endorsed these claims.
The herders say the camels kept in a cow shelter after the police action are starving. The animals are being fed cattle fodder, to which they are not accustomed. They have asked for permission to allow the camels to be taken for grazing under police protection.
A WAY OF LIFE
Rabaris originally belong to Kutch. Those living in Vidarbha and Chhattisgarh have migrated here at least 40 years ago due to droughts in Gujarat. Usually sheep rearers, they keep camels for transport. In this case, the group contends that the camels were being taken to their settlements in Wardha, Nagpur and Raipur.