A group of monks have raided and shut down an “illegal” Muslim slaughterhouse, which has been operating in Wattala for the past 12 years.
“I got a tip-off a week back from one of the residents of the area about the slaughterhouse,” Buddhist monk Dandeniye Samithananda told the Sunday Times.
“We decided to raid the place ourselves because the residents said that they have made series of complaints to the area police but action wasn’t taken to stop the operators.”
The monk, from a Buddhist temple in Kelaniya, said he was hiding outside the abattoir with other villagers, just after poya day, a sacred day every full moon for Buddhist, when the slaughter of animals is banned.
“We went around 5.30-6 a.m. on May 26 to the place and hid to see what was happening there. When we saw that cattle were being slaughtered we sent a message to the police asking them to arrest the butchers,” Samithananda said.
“Even the Muslim people living in the area condemned the slaughter of animals on Poya days,” the chief monk of the temple, Kiwuldeniye Gnyanananda, said.
“It has been going on for many years, and the residents of the area made complaints at the police numerous times but no one took any action to stop them. It was only after the monks got involved that the police actually did something about this,” he said.