Gadhimai: World's biggest ritual slaughter

Motilal Kushwaha had promised the Hindu goddess Gadhimai that he would offer her a male goat if one of his children found a job.

Last year his son was successful -- and on Saturday he was one of tens of thousands of people killing the animals at the temple of Gadhimai in southern Nepal as part of the biggest religious mass slaughter in the world.

"From my village everyone has made a vow [to offer animals]," says Kushwaha from Bariyarpur, a community in Bara district about 60 miles south of Kathmandu. Some, he explains, are glad they have got a son or a daughter, others that a different form of good fortune has befallen them.

The ritual sacrifice of goats, buffaloes and roosters in temples and at home is widespread in Nepal where 80 percent of the population are Hindu.

Some five million people from adjoining districts -- and also from the bordering Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh -- will attend the festival, according to local authorities, although only two days are dedicated to the sacrificial ritual itself.

The slaughter follows a set pattern: on Friday male water buffalo calves are killed while on Saturday attentions switches to goats.

Officials estimate that up to 10,000 buffalo calves and 150,000 goats will be offered to Gadhimai -- the goddess of power -- during the ritual. Watch a CNNi report on the ritual

But these numbers will be much lower than those of 2009, the last time the five-yearly Gadhimai festival took place, thanks to advocacy efforts by animal rights activists. In that year nearly 20,000 buffalo calves were killed, according to temple officials and more than 200,000 goats were slaughtered.

"We object to the cruelty with which animals are treated," says Pramada Shah of Animal Welfare Network Nepal. "There is random hacking of animals in open space. Not all animals have their heads chopped off. Some take up to 40 minutes to die."

The participants -- who hack the animals in an enclosed arena with large knives -- are licensed by the Gadhimai Festival Management and Development Committee. This year about 400 people will kill animals, according to Kushwaha, who is also the committee's secretary.