Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

A mas­sive stray cat­tle round-up in the Ce­dros penin­su­la has sparked anger, dis­be­lief and tears among Ce­dros res­i­dents yes­ter­day, as sol­diers, zookeep­ers and vets chased preg­nant cows through co­conut fields. The ex­er­cise, which start­ed af­ter dawn, at­tract­ed scores of res­i­dents, some of whom called for an im­me­di­ate stop to the round-up. Sev­er­al ar­eas, in­clud­ing Green­hill, Ica­cos and Fuller­ton, were blocked off. Farm­ers were de­nied ac­cess to their es­tates while six van­loads of sol­diers pur­sued the an­i­mals. Late yes­ter­day an or­der was giv­en to stop the shoot­ing.

Sources say one cow was shot dead. Sev­er­al mem­bers of the Ica­cos Taber­na­cle Church of­fered prayers. Many res­i­dents got down on their knees and prayed for the lives of the an­i­mals. An­cil Lemessy, of Fullar­ton Vil­lage, said: "They shoot­ing cows with ba­bies in their bel­lies. "What is hap­pen­ing in our com­mu­ni­ty is un­prece­dent­ed...We be­lieve that these an­i­mals are in­no­cent an­i­mals," he said. "The farm­ers are wrong to have the an­i­mals stray. "If the Gov­ern­ment has a de­ci­sion it must be done in a prop­er man­ner...The Gov­ern­ment will pay for all the in­no­cent blood that is spilled to­day. "Peo­ple were hor­ri­fied by what they saw. Peo­ple start­ed to pray. This is sac­ri­lege and it is against God. What are the peo­ple think­ing. They are try­ing to curse our won­der­ful lands in Ce­dros. They are shed­ding in­no­cent blood. They have start­ed a spir­i­tu­al war in our blessed land."

Mean­while, sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha, Sat Ma­haraj, al­so said that the shoot­ing of the an­i­mals was dis­re­spect­ful to the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty. Last night an emer­gency meet­ing was called to dis­cuss the is­sue. "We are ex­pect­ing our rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Ce­dros to give a first-hand re­port of this is­sue," Ma­haraj said. "We be­lieve this is very in­hu­mane and cal­lous...It shows the na­ture of the peo­ple who live in this coun­try. "Peo­ple have no re­spect for any kind of life, whether it is hu­man life or an­i­mal life." Ma­haraj said he was well aware of the prob­lems which the stray cows posed to the peo­ple liv­ing in the penin­su­la. "The cows roam the co­conut es­tates but this is not the way to han­dle this," he said. "The an­i­mals should have been round­ed up and held on a large farm...They should be giv­en to farm­ers at min­i­mal cost. "My sus­pi­cion is that they will use the meat as food in the zoo.

Min­is­ter: Ac­tion nec­es­sary

Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath says the ex­er­cise to re­move stray cat­tle in the Ce­dros area had be­come nec­es­sary as the an­i­mals had been se­vere­ly dam­ag­ing farm­ers' crops. A re­lease from the min­istry con­firmed that "af­fir­ma­tive ac­tion" had been tak­en to al­le­vi­ate the stray cat­tle prob­lem af­flict­ing the Ce­dros area for the two decades. The re­lease said the min­istry had made at­tempts to con­sult cat­tle own­ers in 2011, but the ma­jor­i­ty had not at­tend­ed meet­ings. Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, stray cat­tle have been se­vere­ly dam­ag­ing crops and fences sur­round­ing farm­ers' hold­ings, frus­trat­ing ef­forts to re­ha­bil­i­tate co­conut es­tates, spread­ing ticks to farms and oth­er live­stock. It said this cre­at­ed un­suit­able work­ing con­di­tions on farms and had caused a se­vere drop in em­ploy­ment for farm work­ers.