The Tamil Nadu government today informed the Supreme Court that it was common for labourers in Thanjavur area to eat ‘‘robust rats’’ and emphatically denied that they were forced to such eating habits due to starvation as was alleged by a public interest litigant. A bench comprising Chief Justice V.N. Khare and Justice S.B. Sinha was informed about this by the counsel for the state government through an affidavit during the hearing of the PIL filed by Congress leader and senior advocate Ashwani Kumar.Quoting a report of the Collector of Tiruvarur district, the government said ‘‘before water is let out in the Cauvery and canals, farmers ferret out field rats in the ridges of the fields and while doing so, it is common for the labourers to select robust rats for cooking after removing the skin.” Referring to the news report about rat-eating by people in villages due to starvation, the government said that it was one such incident when a labourer was cooking rice and roasting a field rat which was reported by the media. ‘‘There have been no starvation deaths in Tamil Nadu and it is also incorrect to say that poor farmers in Tamil Nadu were forced to eat rats to avoid death,’’ it said.
