Tuesday, June 16, 2009 . Page 3 . News 
A day after two horses fell the Andheri flyover to death in broad daylight on Sunday, neither the Andheri police nor the traffic police have registered a case.When contacted, Shivajirao Gulabrao Deshmukh, senior police inspector at the Andheri police station, said, “Nobody came to us to register an FIR. By the time we reached the spot, bodies of the horses were removed.”
Meanwhile, at the traffic police chowkie that situates near the highway, officials feign ignorance. “It was a Sunday and nobody was in office,” said Shambaji Patil, a constable. “When I got a message on the wireless, I have asked my colleagues to go to the spot. But when they reached there, they found only a horse carriage blocking the traffic on the flyover. Later, a police vehicle came and took away the carriage.”
The horses, which were drawing a carriage on the Andheri flyover, fell off from a height of 10 ft and landed on the busy highway below. It was at 3.30 pm. They died instantly.
Onlookers said the horses were part of a team of 10-12 carriages, race from Borivali to the Bandra-Worli Sealink.
“This is an illegal event that occurs every year. Nearly a dozen carriages were running at high speed on the flyover when the tragedy occurred. However, organizers of the event are so well planned and well connected. The horses’ bodies were picked from the spot within 45 minutes and even the blood was washed off from the road. Despite the tragedy, in the same evening, a bike race was also organized, probably by the same group,” said Manoj Kumar Yadav, an employee in an office that situates near the spot where the accident occurred.
According to Neeta Volve employees, immediately after the incident, a mob of 15 to 20 young men came in bikes along with a yellow Tat tempo. “The two horses were loaded in the tempo and carried away right in front of an RTO constable, who was present there,” a roadside vendor said.
Incidentally, on Sunday evening, the Bombay SPCA received another severely injured horse from the western suburbs. “We picked up the horse from the western suburbs. “We picked up the horse from a place in Andheri after the BMC’s disaster management cell alerted us at 3.45 pm. The animal was brought for the treatment at 5.25 pm,” said Lt. Colonel (Rtd.) J C Khanna of the BSPCA Hospital. The horse had a wound on its left hind leg and was limping terribly when we brought it to the hospital. Our doctors observed that it has respiratory distress and a weak pulse.”
Khanna said the horse was administered with life-saving drugs including pain killers, tetanusoxide and steroids. However, the animal died on Monday morning. Khanna was unsure whether the third horse was also injured during the same carriage race.
Meanwhile, Sunish Subramanian, secretary of Plant & Animals Welfare Society (PAWS) Mumbai, who has taken on the police over several illegal cases of horse racing on the Eastern Express Highway in the past, said, Such illegal races are rampant at various spots across the city on Eastern and Western suburbs. However, whenever we approach the police after noticing such incidents, they take it lightly and never register a complaint. Instead, they threaten us and say we are wasting their time. The police should strict action to stop this atrocity.
Monday, June 15, 2009
