Indian among four dead at Nepal's controversial fair

The most controversial religious fair in Nepal's Terai plains, where thousands of birds and beasts are doomed to be slaughtered next week, has fallen into more disrepute with the death of four visitors, including an Indian.

Laloo Mahato Nuniyar, a resident of Motihari district in India's Bihar state and said to be in his mid-30s, had gone to attend the fair at Hindu goddess Gadhimai's temple in southern Nepal's Bara district.

Nuniyar died Thursday after consuming adulterated local moonshine while three other Nepali men died Friday and a fifth was fighting for life in hospital, police said Saturday.

The three other victims claimed by the adulterated brew are from Bara, police said. They have been identified as Chhotelal Shah, Harendra Prasad Yadav and Krishna Prasad Yadav.

The Gadhimai Fair, held every five years and drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors from India and Nepal, has been one of the most controversial religious events in Nepal where, according to animal rights activists, commercial considerations drive the festivities.

Dozens of shops selling illegal local spirits have been set up on the fair ground to cater to the visitors, most of whom are poor and uneducated villagers from Nepal's Terai as well as the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

The deaths come on the eve of mass slaughter of birds and beasts to start from Tuesday.

The temple authorities say 500,000 buffaloes, goats, chickens, pigeons and other birds and beasts will be killed for two days.

They claim a slaughterhouse has been built at a cost of over NRs.5 million to kill the animals and about 250 butchers have been hired.

Nepal's government, struggling to survive in the face of new disruptions threatened by the former Maoist guerrillas, has refused to ban the slaughter despite warnings by animal experts that the massacre could trigger swine flu, bird flu and cattle diseases and gravely affect the environment.

Though legendary French film star turned animal rights campaigner Brigitte Bardot and India's noted animal rights activist and MP Maneka Gandhi urged the Nepal government to stop the slaughter, the pleas have been disregarded for fear that a ban would inflame Hindu religious sentiments.

Even Nepal's celebrated Ram Bahadur Bomjan, the boy who shot to world fame with tales of his meditation without food and water for months, has been asking villagers not to indulge in animal sacrifices but with little result.

Animal rights activists from Nepal have also warned the government that the killings - which turn the fair into the “world's largest killing fields” - will adversely affect Nepal's image in the eyes of the world, projecting the Himalayan republic as a barbaric nation ruled by blind superstition.

Last updated on Nov 21^st, 2009 at 14:47 pm IST--IANS