On Wednesday, Sunish Subramaniam of PAWS posted written complaints, along with photographic evidence and the name of the alleged owner, to the Sahar police station, the Andheri police station and the police commissioner, asking for action against the owner for letting horses take part in illegal street races. The NGO specified the laws against using animals for public performance without permission.

“I am making this complaint. Now it is the responsibility of the police to begin investigations,” Subramanian said. He also demanded an investigation into whether a horse is buried at the site.

The two horses that fell off the flyover were allegedly part of a group of 10 to 12 carriages taking part in an illegal race. They lay on the road for 45 minutes till a group of people took them away. The blood was cleaned within minutes. There was no police intervention.

“Yeh sab race ke ghode hai,” a local said, adding that the owner had eight to nine such horses. He added cautiously that the owner lives in the same settlement.

“While it is not illegal to keep horses, cruelty to animal for the sake of performance is unconstitutional,” Subramanian said. “However, organisers of these races often bribe lower-rung policemen. In most cases, the higher authorities are unaware of these events.”

When Newsline visited the house of the alleged horse owner in the Anna Wadi slum, his wife said, “My husband is not in the city. You can talk to him when he returns... We have a few horses, but we don’t use them for racing. We don’t know of any horse that died.”