Pandemic or not, no stopping the GT Road races; 9 held

Greater Noida: While the pandemic has upended regular activities of most around the globe, some villages in UP have not given the yearly ritual of horse-cart racing to check the performance of the animals a miss.
And based on a video of this year’s race that has been shared widely on social media, nine people were arrested on Tuesday for gathering on GT Road to watch the horses outrun one another.
According to locals, the event is organised every year by people from Sikandrabad, Dhaulana and Loni, and since good roads in these villages are few, the connecting GT Road is where they conduct the race. To ensure the safety of the animals, an entourage of 20 to 25 motorbikes also ride along with the horse-carts.
Vishal Pandey, additional deputy commissioner of police (Zone 3), said that at around 7am on Tuesday, they were informed that some villagers are conducting a race on the highway near Dadri with two horse-drawn carts, motorcycles, three wheelers and mini trucks, and scores of locals had gathered along the stretch to see the event.
“A police team immediately rushed to the spot and found nine people along with two autorickshaws and a mini truck while those on bikes and horse-carts had escaped. We also circulated the message on the wireless sets, however, the miscreants crossed the Ghaziabad border before we could catch them,” he said.
Primary investigation revealed that the race was organised between two horses owned by Pehelwan, a resident of Ghaziabad. Cops are investigating whether the event was commercial in nature and if there was any kind of betting involved.
Those arrested have been identified as Babban, Kasim, Arshad, Sajid, Furqan, Mohammad, Hasan and Yasin from Loni, Ghaziabad, and Shahrukh from Muradnagar, Ghaziabad.
When asked in Dadri village, locals claimed that outsiders from Sikandrabad, Dhaulana, Loni and some of the areas of Delhi organise such races every year, apparently to check their horse’s performance. They choose GT road because they get a 7km to 8km stretch to race on, said a resident.
Around 30 families in Dadri also keep horses, however, they claim to engage their animals in weddings and other legal events.
Mohammad Abid, a resident of Katehra road in Dadri who owns 20 horses, said races of this nature are organised by well-off families who keep horses as their hobby. “They are landowners from neighboring districts who have businesses nowadays. They either organise independently or collaborate with others,” he said.
Abid added that the organisers place bets and market the event in the neighboring villages using Whatsapp. They don’t get noticed because usually such events are organised on holidays and early in the morning. “A lot of money is raised and distributed in such events which have a cultural relevance. People eagerly wait for these races.”
“Two teams of policemen have been sent to Loni area of Ghaziabad to conduct raids. All those who participated in the race are being identified using the video and will soon be arrested,” the ADCP added.
An FIR has been lodged against several unknown persons along with the nine arrested under section 188 (disobedience to order), sections 269 and 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) of IPC.