A day after a video of an injured nilgai being buried alive in Bihar’s Vaishali district went viral, the police filed an FIR against the driver of the earth mover used in the incident but no arrests had been made so far. The video, which has been circulated locally since August 30, drew widespread outrage on Thursday and shows an earth mover pushing an injured animal into a pit and burying it with mud. According to police, the video was shot in a village under Bhagwanpur police station. Bhagwanpur police station in-charge Chandrabhushan Shukla said: “We have booked a JCB driver on complaint of Lalganj ranger.” The accused has not been arrested so far. Vaishali Superintendent of Police Manavjit Dhillon had ordered an inquiry on August 30 itself. Several reports had also suggested that Lalganj MLA Rajkumar Shah was a witness to the incident. However, Shah told The Indian Express: “This is a canard. I am not the Vaishali MLA. I represent Lalganj and had no business to go there. Let the district police look into the matter.” Sources in the district said Nilgais are often killed by local farmers in the region. “There was, however, no previous incident of burying a nilgai alive. Generally, professional shooters are hired to kill them,” they said. In 2016, the Centre had allowed Bihar to designate nilgais as vermin, which meant that farmers were allowed to kill them. Bihar’s chief wildlife warden Rakesh Kumar said: “Nilgai is a vermin and can be killed but with laiddown procedures. We have sought permission to declare nilgai as vermin till 2024. But what happened in Vaishali is wrong and those responsible for it would face action.”
