Bollywood Stars Want Animal Cruelty to Stop

Bollywood stars are lending their time and energy to highlight cruelty faced by India's animals. From being chained and caged, they want this to stop.

Rahul Khanna, An Actor Joined the lost list of stars, including Aishwarya Rai, Shilpa Shetty and Madhuri Dixit, to publize the unfair treatment of animals.

Dressed up in a torn T-shirt and shackled in chains with bruises painted all over his body, he posed with the tagline "Beaten, shackled, abused - elephants do not belong in zoos" for PETA.

"It's a simple fact. When a celebrity speaks, people listen," said Anuradha Sawhney, chief functionary for PETA India.

"Every time a celebrity speaks out for a cause, be it for animal abuse in circuses, or their conditions in zoos, or the suffering in factory farms, a lot of compassionate people come forward to find out how they can help."

Sawhney said that PETA offices are often flooded with calls, letters and emails from people asking questions or asking for help.

On the behalf of PETA, Aishwarya Rai wrote a letter to save an endangered black rhinoceros in South Africa. Shilpa Shetty donned a body hugging, tiger stripped bodysuit and was urging people to boycott circuses. Madhuri Dixit wrote to the government in the support of Elephants.

John Abraham and dancer Rakhi Swant are the other stars helping out. Abraham was seen posing in an open cage, saying "Let birds fly free". Swant stood for 5 hours to have her body painted with tiger stripes for an anti-circus ad.

In their latest campaign, PETA, with Khanna, is promoting awareness of treatment of elephants in cities and zoos.

Elephants are often ill-treated in cities, in which they are used by their ownes to beg and are poorly fed and are forced to walk on tarmac roads day and night, says Animal Rights Activists.

Activists say, In the zoos, the animals are separated from their families and sentenced to a lifetime of boredom, loneliness and abuse. Adding that elephants are intelligent, sensitive and social creatures which live in closely knit family groups.