Odisha: Animal sacrifice resumes at Kendrapada temple

KENDRAPADA: After a two-year Covid-induced hiatus, around 200 animals, including 100 goats, were sacrificed to please the goddess of Ma Jagulei temple in Kendrapada's Garadapur village on Gouri Panchami.

The animal sacrifice, which used to mark the occasion every year before the pandemic struck, began on Wednesday night and continued until the wee hours of the next morning.

According to tradition, the sacrificial animals are first taken to the temple where vermilion is applied on their foreheads. Some devotees garland the animals before taking them to the altar. After wedging the neck between wooden poles, the killer raises his sword and beheads the animal with an unquivering and unfailing stroke.

For a few minutes, its limbs shiver, blood gushing out from its freshly cut neck, until death renders it motionless. The area around the sacrificial altar of the temple is soaked in blood.

Temple priest Balabhadra Panda was happy to see the high footfall of devotees after two years.

However, Hemant Rout, an environmentalist and an animal rights activist of Kendrapada, said, "The practice of mass animal sacrifice is a cognizable offence under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, but it has been going on for several years right under the nose of the administration and the police."

Sudhanshu Parida, secretary of the district unit of Peoples for Animals, said, "For years we have been trying to pursuade the authorities and devotees to stop such gruesome acts, but our pleas have falllen on deaf ears."