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An action plan is being worked out by the Indian leather industry to prevent cruelty to animals. This has been conveyed to the US-based non-government organisation (NGO) People for Ethical Treatment to Animals (PETA). The move comes in the wake of three US retail chains having dropped the sale of Indian leather.

Fashion accessory retailers Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic of the US have stopped importing Indian leather. The main force behind the decision has been the vociferous demonstrations organised by PETA to raise awareness against the cruel treatment of animals in India. PETA told the Indian Council for Leather Exports (CLE) that the exporters are to blame for cruelty to animals while transferring them and at slaughter houses. PETA says that the cruelty to animals is at the instance of and for the benefit of the Indian leather sector.

At a recent meeting between the PETA and members of the Indian leather industry, it was revealed that the CLE, the ministry of commerce and industry-sponsored association of Indian leather exporters, was making a detailed action plan to educate traders and dealers in animal hides and skins on proper method of transport and slaughter of animals.

CLE chairperson M Mohamed Hashim told the PETA delegation chief Ingrad Newkirk that "never in the past nor ever in the future will the leather industry of the country even remotely encourage or support such horrendous malpractices.' He further asserted that the industry used hardly 10 per cent of the leather derived from cows and of theat six per cent is taken from fallen animals. Ninety per cent of the leather used by the industry came from goats and buffaloes, he said. "The industry will join hands with all appropriate agencies in the country to combat this menace with its full force,' Hashim told PETA.

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