Upset over the national carrier Air India's U-turn on ferrying animals for lab experiments, the international animal rights lobby People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) has devised a novel way to lodge their protest and remind the carrier of to revise its decision. In a letter to Air India chairman and managing director Rohit Nandan, Peta has proposed to take on rent a space on the airline’s former iconic headquarters in the tony Nariman Point area to set up a museum for abused and killed animals in medical experiments. "We heard that Air India is having trouble finding lessors for its vacant building in Mumbai. Peta would like to rent a space in your building to set up an animal experimentation museum. Our proposal will benefit your company," PTI reporting the lobby group as saying in the letter. Peta claims that after discussions, it had convinced Air India to implement a ban on ferrying animals to labs but later it backtracked and decided to transport animals to labs for "cruel tests."
It may be mentioned here that the flag carrier is struggling hard to lease out most of its 23 storey sea-facing building at Nariman Point in the southend of the megapolis. Though it has managed to lease out around 54,000 sqft area to State Bank, it has could not attract more tenants due to high rentals. The proposed museum will feature interactive educational displays that will help visitors see what life is for animals which are caged/poisoned/killed/sliced up in medical laboratories, it said. A couple of few months back, the animal rights activists had staged a protest on the issue by wearing prisoner uniforms and animal masks outside the Air India headquarters in New Delhi. The letter further stated that the proposed museum will educate visitors on the unreliability of animal experiments, as they cannot accurately predict effects in humans. "The museum will also inform the visitors that science is moving towards human-relevant, modern techniques for testing,” the Peta letter said.
