VIJAYAWADA: Sankranti, which is the favourite festival of Telugus is hardly two days away and rural folk who look forward to their favourite sport have started gearing up for the season of cockfights. Police restricted arrangements of the cockfight camp organisers in and around Vijayawada City on Saturday.
Now all the known cockfighting villages are surrounded by policemen. Though there is a restriction by the police the blood sport continues to take place and the ruling party leaders themselves organise cockfights on the eve of Sankranti special celebrations in all Mandals of the district and other parts of the state.
Even a posh location in Vijayawada hosted a cockfight event organised by local legislatures. That was the growing craze for the cockfights in urban areas too. While a majority are gearing up with their roosters nurtured since long, others are making use of the Internet to sell off and buy roosters and get ready for the festival season in advance. The activity of cock fighting picks up with the new vigour and reaches a high during the three days of Sankranti in the third week of January.
Many rings arranged at Edupugallu near Vijayawada in the constitution of Penamaluru supported by the local MLA, Bode Prasad. There was a setting in around 10 acres and arranged with 50 to 60 Shamiyanas along with the teams of organisers. On the credible information to the police, joint commissioner B.V. Ramana Kumar reached and restricted Bode Prasad, MLA of Penamaluru twice while entering into the field to inaugurate it.
MLA expressed his dissatisfaction and commented that the police are acting aggressively. “We are having information that the participants are going to play with tied knife cockfights and we restricted the outers into the villages,” said B.V. Ramana Kumar. “We stopped the cock fights at Edupugallu, Uyyuru, Gandikunta, Bhavanipuram, Totlavalluru and Sanamakuru. We told them to arrange CCTV cameras and not tie knives to the cocks,” he added. Though, the police restrictions are in force Bode Prasad inaugurated the cock fights camp at Edupugallu village in the evening 8 pm.
They are going to organise not only cock fights but also sheep fights. According to an information source, some of the rings are going to conduct Kasinova and sheep fights along with cock fights. MLC Yalamanchali. Babu Rajendra Prasad inaugurated the cock fight camp at Godavarru. Ravi Venkateswararo, in-charge of TD inaugurated a camp at Gudivada. Now cock fight camps started at Poranki, Yanamalakuduru, Godavarru, and Edupugallu near Vijayawada. “We came from Vemuru near Tenali of Guntur to participate in the cock fight, but the police objected us to even enter the village, even we requested them that we are not using knifes,” said Sureddy Venkataratnam, who came to participate at Edupugallu of Krishna District, near Vijayawada.
