Wearing beagle masks and white jumpsuits, members of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India staged a demonstration outside the Animal Quarantine and Certification Service Station at Pallikaranai here on Thursday.
The group held a banner that read: ‘Stop wrongful import of dogs for cruel tests’. They were protesting against the illegal import of 70 beagles from China by Bangalore-based Advinus Therapeutics Pvt Ltd (ATL), a pharmaceutical laboratory that performs painful and deadly experiments on animals. The company, on the import forms, had stated that the dogs were to be used as ‘pets’.
According to the Livestock Importation Act, 1898, PETA said, animals bound for laboratories and those imported as companions fell under different government-mandated procedures. The group demanded that the dogs, which were currently in quarantine, be released and put up for adoption and that the government immediately launch an investigation into the issue.
“These friendly, lovable dogs could spend the rest of their lives caged in a laboratory, where they may be poisoned, cut open and killed,” PETA’s science policy adviser Chaitanya Koduri said in a press release. “Forcing animals to face the archaic horrors of experimentation is a crime against nature. Falsifying documents in order to perform these atrocities is also a crime.” PETA said it was ready to take custody of the dogs and help get them adopted, in accordance with the stated purpose for which they were imported.