BENGALURU: Animal rights group People for Animals (PFA) received a call for rescue from Vijayanagar, and volunteers came across a monitor lizard with four fingers missing from its limbs. The volunteers suspect that it could be part of an elaborate blackmagic ritual.
According to PFA General Manager Colonel Nawaz Shariff, the team received a call from a person who stated that a monitor lizard was found in the compound of a house in Vijayanagar. The volunteers rushed to the spot and picked up the reptile, which was examined at a rehabilitation centre.
“The injuries seem too uniform across all the limbs of the lizard, and it is suspected the fingers were cut off to be used in some sort of blackmagic,” said Shariff. He noted that such injuries on animals like slender loris and barn owls are reported before major elections, raising suspicion of animal parts being used for perceived political gain. “More than 75 slender lorises were rescued, of which, around eight had suffered serious injuries. Just before Assembly elections last year, cases of barn owls whose eyes were gouged out, or had broken legs, were also reported. It appears that people capture and torture animals, birds and reptiles to indulge in superstitious practices, to defeat opponents,” he Shariff.