Panaji July 25 (IANS) Goa lawmakers on Wednesday urged the state government to legalise bullfighting even as Animal Husbandry Minister Mauvin Godinho assured the Assembly that he will lobby the Centre to get the banned sport legalised.
"I will fight for this actively and lobby in Delhi. This is something which the Goans love " Godinho told the Assembly even as legislators cutting across party lines demanded mulling of ways and means to get the ban revoked.
"Our bullfighting is not like the ones involving matadors. There (in Spain) they kill bulls. Here we rear bulls for the fights. It does not amount to cruelty. In fact bullfighting is like boxing " Nationalist Congress Party MLA Churchill Alemao said.
Once a popular post-harvest sport bullfighting or dhirio was banned in Goa following orders of the Bombay High Court bench in Panaji in the 1990s. But bullfighting is organised clandestinely in villages across the coastline.
The Assembly in 2015 had formed a house committee to explore ways to legalise bullfighting within the ambit of existing laws against animal cruelty.

--IANS maya/tsb/bg