More than 150 animals rescued from Jipmer's experimentation facility in Puducherry

PUDUCHERRY: The Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) has rescued more than 150 rats and mice used for experimentation at Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (Jipmer).
The committee's action came after a complaint lodged by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) with evidence of the reported violations and cruelty to animals at the institute. The committee handed over the rescued animals to PETA India for rehabilitation in a sanctuary with necessary enrichment and veterinary services they need.
PETA India received a complaint from a whistleblower that rats and mice were kept in miserable conditions and were confined to crowded boxes and forced to eat food contaminated with fungus at Jipmer, in violation of CPCSEA regulations and guidelines.
Furthermore, the animals were bred to overpopulation and students were forced to perform experiments on them solely to reduce their numbers. A release from PETA India said as per the various research publications by Jipmer in the last decade, the animals were subjected to painful experiments in which they were forced to consume drugs and chemicals, deliberately infected with diseases and subjected to mutilating procedures, after which they were ultimately killed.
“While these animals have been spared a lifetime of misery and pain in a laboratory, there’s still work to be done to keep more animals out of experimenters’ hands,” said PETA India science policy advisor Ankita Pandey.
“We hope this incident encourages institutes across India to use only non-animal methods of experimentation and teaching,” said Pandey.
Earlier, CPCSEA slapped a show-cause notice to Jipmer demanding that the institute stop experiments on animals. It warned the institute of legal action. PETA charged that Jipmer had not renewed its registration licence since 2012 but continued to breed and conduct experiments on rats and mice and fund illegal experiments, even after CPCSEA cancelled its registration on May 5, 2022.