A few months ago, a news about three young men being arrested in Rampura for torturing a stray dog took city dwellers by surprise. Mainly because most of us, despite being quite familiar with such wrongdoings, never saw justice being served to the perpetrators. Stumbling upon tortured, bruised or skinned stray animals on the streets of Dhaka is nothing out of the ordinary. With the exception of a very few online communities, everyone else seems to have made peace with these occurrences.
As a nation, we aren’t quite the kindest to animals. To second that, a good example would be the traditions carried out during the Eid-ul-Adha celebrations every year. Most of us will certainly remember a time, when growing up as kids, we would race to be the first in line to witness the annual ritual of animal slaughtering, where our mamas and chachas would join forces to perform the act. A small group of people may have stopped stepping out of their houses during this time, but the rest of us are used to watching cows and goats being killed in such barbaric ways that we’ve become desensitised to animal cruelty.
After talking to Imam Abu Rashid, a scholar from Lalmonirhat, what emerges is enlightening. “In recent years, the way Qurbani is practised by Muslims of our country is quite horrifying. All these wealthy families are buying the largest cows from the 'gorur haat' and putting a dent in their wallet, but showing no respect to these animals,” he says. Explaining how these supposed halal methods of slaughtering animals are a far cry from the true teachings of Islam, Imam Abu Rashid goes on to add that, “these animals are ill-treated and slaughtered in succession in the basement, roads or on the neighbourhood playground. Animals should not watch other animals being killed. In our village, we would isolate the animal to be sacrificed from the rest. Comforting the sacrificial animals before the slaughter, by petting them and giving them water to drink was very common. And we would never sharpen the blades to be used for the slaughter in front of them. But these practices are long-lost now.”
In another conversation with Shafiqul Islam, manager, Brand and Retail Sales of Bengal Meat, he tells the Dhaka Tribune that his organisation practises halal slaughter but does not torture or mistreat animals in any way. While describing how the slaughter takes place at Bengal Meat, he says, “We have a very spacious area where we keep the animals. They are given enough drinking water, food and are allowed to rest. They are then taken to an isolated room, one by one. The room is small and restricts movement of the animal. It can be rotated in such a manner that the animal’s neck would automatically be positioned right above the edge of the blade held by the butcher, who would quickly slit its throat. They are killed even before they can experience any pain.”
In many western countries, there has been an ongoing debate about whether pre-stunning animals before killing them, which would substantially minimise unnecessary suffering, should be legalised in the halal meat industry. An article published on the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) website in 2014 talks about a report, put together by Food Standards Agency (FSA), indicating that almost an 88% of animals slaughtered by halal method in the UK are stunned in advance, in a manner that many Muslims find religiously justifiable.
There are organisations in most of these countries that aim to promote the right method of halal slaughtering. The method involves techniques, which when applied, make the animals more submissive, and the act a lot less painful.
A visual documentary originally released on YouTube in 2011 by Mercy Slaughter LLC, a Texas-based organisation, went viral in 2014. The video shows that when the employees at Mercy Slaughter LLC utters “Bismillah Allahu Akbar,” covering the animals’ eyes with their ears and gently stroking their back, they come to a complete standstill and rest in submission.
It comes as no surprise that there is no committee or organisation in Bangladesh to speak out against animal cruelty or teach methods identical to the ones depicted in the Mercy Slaughter LLC video.
Similar to the views shared by Imam Abu Rashid, Shafiqul Islam also feels that educating butchers and imams should be made a topmost priority to lessen animal abuse. “Since many imams perform the slaughter, whether it’s during Eid-ul-Adha or on any other day at the local slaughterhouse, it is of the utmost importance to teach them to be more humane.” Considering the close affiliation of the Islamic Foundation of Bangladesh with all major mosques across the country, Shafiqul Islam believes that the foundation could make a difference to help stop animal abuse through awareness raising campaigns.
According to Islamic laws, halal slaughtering involves killing an animal by slitting its jugular vein, carotid artery and windpipe with a quick, single swipe, following which blood must be drained out of the carcass. However, killing an animal with its arms, legs and mouth tied, its body fighting for its last breath while the butcher repeatedly slashes its neck back and forth with an unsharpened blade, is standard procedure in Bangladesh.