ELURU: As many as 50 cows died of asphyxiation while they were being transported jam-packed in a container truck from Avupadu to Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh on Thursday.
Police said they had on Wednesday intercepted at Avupadu some 72 cows from Odisha being transported in a truck to the Bahadurpura slaughterhouse in Hyderabad.
Police took the driver and cleaner into custody and decided to shift the animals to a goshala maintained by the Kakinada Gosamrakshana Samiti. When the container truck reached Kakinada, the organisers of the goshala found that some cows had died and refused to accept them.
Police brought the container back to Avupadu again and found that 50 cows had died just as they were about to hand over the animals to another goshala there.
The goshala told the police that they wouldn’t accept the dead cows either. Now, the police are in a fix as to what to do with the remaining cows and the carcasses.
When reports last came in, they were guarding the animals and the carcasses.