Strange Nepalese ritual – slaughtering thousands of buffaloes and other animals every 5-years

A strange ritual takes place once every 5-years in Nepal when over 250,000 animals like buffalo, birds and goats are slaughtered in the name of religion as the country embarks on a two-day religious festival where the animals are sacrificed to appease a Hindu goddess.
It is a Hindu ceremony and millions of them flock to it – it is held once in five years at the temple of Gadhimai, the goddess of power, in Bariyarpur, Nepal, near the Indian border. As per reports of PETA, the last time the festival was held, in 2009, more than 250,000 animals were killed.
The festival starts with the ritual ceremonial slaughter at dawn with a ceremonial sacrifice of five animals, namely a rat, a goat, a rooster, a pig and a pigeon – this is the ‘panch bali’. Then follows the 5000 buffaloes in a field near the temple, after which two days of ritual animal slaughter takes place.
The animal rights activists like PETA are campaigning to put a stop to this inhuman practice but in spite of their best efforts, the organizers of this Hindu festival have revealed that this year will be the biggest yet.
It seems nearly 2.5 million devotees have turned arrived for the festival, and as per a local government official the total number of animals that have been sacrificed just cannot be ascertained. The word is sacrificed instead of slaughtered.
The first day saw 6,000 buffaloes sacrificed – the animals were coralled into holding pens in the fields, along with at least 100,000 goats and other animals. The festivities will continue on Saturday when at least another 100,000 animals will die in the name of goddess Gadhimai.
The practice is to bury the heads of the sacrificed animals in a huge pit while the animal hides and skin will be sold to traders who have contracted in advance to buy them.