Agartala: Days after the deadly African swine fever was detected in Tripura’s Debipur breeding farm, the culling of the symptomatic and isolated pigs started at the farm.
Executions of the pig are being done in presence of higher officials of the Animal Resource Development Department and cops.
But what surprised the locals was the process adopted by the ARDD officials for the culling.
It was decided that the pigs would be injected with poisonous medicine to kill the infected ones to bury them in a specific space but eyewitnesses claimed that the pigs were bludgeoned.
All the infected pigs could not be killed on the first day so the exercise continued on Sunday as well.
“So far 121 pigs had been culled,” said an official.
There are altogether 38 piggery farms within the one kilometer of the government farm considered to be the epicentre of the disease.
The police officials and ARD department representatives have visited all the farms and requested them to surrender the animals for culling.
All the pigs would be brought to the Debipur farm to complete the process. The private farm owners will be duly compensated as per the central government scheme.
However, local sources claimed that an unscrupulous group of traders has started to buy the infected pigs at low rates to supply them in the open market.
A section of the private farm owners fearing drop-in rate are selling out the pigs. After being informed the civil administration has started to intervene and raise awareness among the local farm owners.