Ban animal transport: PETA to hold protest against Air India

New Delhi, May 22: Wearing prisoner uniforms and animal masks, activists will stage protest May 23 outside the Air India office here after the carrier backtracked on its ban on transporting animals for cruel tests, the PETA said Wednesday.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) will stage a protest outside Air India office, near Patel Chowk Metro station here, at 12 noon Thursday, the animal rights group said Wednesday.

"Air India's repeated assurances that it will refuse to transport animals to laboratories apparently meant nothing. It has gone right back to shipping animals to their deaths," said Chaitanya Koduri, PETA-India's science policy adviser.

Wearing prisoner uniforms and masks of dog, rabbit, and rat and holding signs that read, 'Air India Ships Animals to Deadly Experiments', six PETA members will plead Air India not to ferry animals to laboratories where they are killed for experiments.

"Air India officials are every bit as guilty of the pain, suffering and death that these animals are subjected to as the experimenters who wield the poisons and scalpels," Koduri added.

Jet Airways, India's second-largest airline, also recently committed to a ban on transporting animals slated for experimentation, the PETA added.

IANS