Located in Puducherry, the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research (JIPMER) has been pulled up for alleged cruel and illegal experimentation on animals.
A show-cause notice has been sent to the institute's director by the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) with a demand that the experiments be halted, failing which, legal action will be initiated, as stated in a report by IANS.
Following a complaint from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India, CPCSEA sent a show-cause notice. The complaint by PETA was submitted with evidence of the violation of animal protection laws.
The CPCSEA is a statutory body formed by the Act of the Indian Parliament under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960.
In the complaint by PETA India, evidence of cruelty and illegality by JIPMER was submitted. This was done via photographs, the Institutional Animal Ethics Committee (IAEC) circulars inviting research proposals using animals, minutes of IAEC meetings during which illegal animal experiments were approved, memorandums releasing research grants to support proposals involving animal experiments, and published research papers that discuss experiments conducted on animals by the institute during the past 10 years.
A concerned student had alerted the animal rights organisations about the issue.
According to the complaint that was received by PETA India from the student, rats and mice were kept in terrible conditions as they were confined to overcrowded boxes and forced to eat food which was contaminated by fungus. This is in violation of CPCSEA regulations and guidelines.
Moreover, these animals were reportedly bred to overpopulation and students were forced to perform experiments on them to reduce their numbers.
"Compassionate students across India have the power to hold their institutes accountable for breaking the law and tormenting animals in experiments," said PETA India Science Policy Advisor Dr Ankita Pandey.
The show-cause notice, dated July 6, issued by CPCSEA directs JIPMER to furnish details about the animals that their animal facility houses, details of the experiments that have been conducted on the animals in the duration of the last ten years and the minutes of meetings of the IAEC, which approved the experiments on the animals.
"We applaud CPCSEA for taking action against JIPMER for conducting unauthorised animal experiments, and we appeal to all medical colleges in the country to replace the use of animals for dissection, training, and other experimentation with humane and superior, non-animal methods now," Dr Pandey stated.
