Police on Tuesday arrested four people for bringing five camels to the city from Rajasthan via Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh for slaughter ahead of Bakrid on Thursday.
Volunteers of People For Cattle in India (PFCI) led by founder G Arun, spotted Mehboob Basha, 30, Ismail, 38, both from Kadappa, Ramachandran, 35, of MGR Nagar, and Nandakumar, 43, of Ayanavaram, with the camels in Uthukottai, 90km from Chennai.
They chased and caught the men and handed them over to the Uthukottai police.
Police charged them under IPC Sections 428 (killing or maiming animals) and 429 (killing or maiming cattle) and under Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act Section 11. They pre sented the four men before a magistrate who remanded them in judicial custody.
The men had sourced the animals from Rajasthan and brought them to the city through Kadapa. They told police traffickers paid them ` 12,000 to bring the animals to Red Hills in the city. Traffickers sell camels for up to ` 1 lakh each for Bakrid.
They told police they had started their journey on Sunday and reached Kadapa on Monday. Two of the five camels were bleeding from the legs. The traffickers did not feed or give water to the camels during the journey.
“This is one of the few times that we have rescued camels before they were taken for slaughter,“ PFCI's Arun said.
The volunteers took the rescued camels to an animal care centre in Otteri.
