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Save the cow, McCartney tells Vajpayee

Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has appealed to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to help stop the alleged abuse of Indian cows in the international meat and leather trades, a global animal rights group said on Thursday.

Jason Baker, spokesman for the India branch of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said McCartney had expressed shock and horror that cows, revered by millions of Hindus in India, were subjected to brutal torture.

McCartney, in his letter sent last week, said he was "deeply upset" by corruption, "illegal practices at slaughterhouses" and cruel transport conditions.

"These cows, bullocks and calves, their eyes filled with fear and pain, are sent to slaughter, jam-packed together in overcrowded lorries, travelling for hundreds of kilometres (miles) without food or water.

"Those who collapse from exhaustion and injuries are severely beaten, have hot chili peppers smeared into their eyes and have their tails deliberately broken at each joint," he said.

McCartney said it would be wrong to blame only Muslims and Christians and exclude India's overwhelmingly dominant Hindu majority from censure.

"The fact is that people of all religions are involved in cruelty at some stage or another," he said. "To stop the suffering, we must react as one people, united by decency and compassion."

The veteran rocker recalled Mahatma Gandhi, India's independence hero who campaigned throughout his life for vegetarianism.

"The world remembers Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's words that a nation can be judged by how it treats its animals," McCartney wrote. "Please do not allow his words to ring hollow in the 21st century."

PETA spokesman Baker told AFP there had been "no response so far from the Indian government."

PETA had earlier released a video narrated by former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson Lee exposing the inhumane treatment of cows in India by the leather industry.

Baker said other celebrities including Chrispian Mills, the lead singer of the British group Kula Shaker, had written to Vajpayee about the abuse of cattle in India.

The US-based PETA is one of the largest animal rights groups in the world and counts among its 700,000 members other celebrities like film star Woody Harrelson and rock star Chrissi Hynde.

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