Patna, June 11: Wildlife activists have come out in protest against the selective killing of nilgai or blue antelopes in Bihar after Union minister Maneka Gandhi condemned the shooting of the animals the past week.

Naresh Kadyan, an activist in New Delhi, filed a zero FIR at Prashant Vihar police station in the national capital yesterday against shooters of the animals in Bihar along with the officials concerned who allowed the selective killing. Kadyan also wrote letters to the state authorities to stop hunting of the nilgai and adopt safety measures.

A zero FIR can be filed in any police station irrespective of the jurisdiction and can be later transferred to the police station concerned.

The row over nilgai killing erupted on Thursday when Union women and child development minister Maneka and Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar gave conflicting statements on the issue. While Maneka decried the shooting of about 200 nilgai in Bihar, saying it reflected the environment ministry's "lust for killing of animals", Javadekar said it had been allowed on a request from the Bihar government. He claimed the culling was an element of "scientific management" of human-animal conflict.

"The government's excuse of 'scientific management' of human-animal conflict for allowing the selective killing of nilgai is completely baseless," Kadyan told The Telegraph. "These animals can be rehabilitated and birth control schemes can be introduced in place of brutally hunting them. Besides, the decision to give Rs 500 for cartridges and Rs 1,000 for burying each nilgai to the shooter is a violation of the Indian Arms Act. We demand from the Centre and the state government to immediately stop killing nilgai in Bihar and take appropriate actions against the shooters and officials responsible for nilgai killed till date."

The zero FIR, a copy of which is with The Telegraph, has been lodged under different sections of the Indian Penal Code, the Arms Act and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.

A senior Bihar environment and forests official said the state board of wildlife, headed by chief minister Nitish Kumar, in a meeting on June 15 last year decided to allow killing of nilgai to control their population and prevent damage to standing crops. The proposal was later forwarded to the Union forests ministry to declare nilgai as vermin under provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

The Union government through a gazette notification on December 1 last year stated that the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate declared nilgai and wild pig in Bihar vermin for one year.