india

Updated: Oct 23, 2019 11:32 IST

A family in Kalanwali town in Haryana’s district Sirsa is waiting for a bull to pass dung, as the bovine swallowed gold ornaments weighing about 40 grams on Sunday.

They have been feeding the animal over the past three days, with the hope that it will also pass the gold along with the excreta. “We have been checking the dung to recover the gold. It’s a dirty job, but we have no other option,” says Janak Raj, as the jewels belong to Raj’s wife and daughter-in-law.

Janak, a businessman in Kalanwali, said that after his wife and daughter-in-law came back from a wedding they kept the ornaments in a bowl in the kitchen. “My aged mother cut some vegetables and used the same bowl to discard the leftovers,” he said.

His mother then threw the leafy contents of the bowl outside the house which was eaten up by a bull roaming outside, but she spotted an earring on the floor nearby, which she brought back into the house, he added.

Sources said the family members ran from pillar to post after they checked the CCTV camera and identified the bull. After five hours they finally spotted the bull. Now, they have tied it an empty plot near the house and are feeding the bull daily and checking its dung.

Raj said the family feared that someone could kill the bull for the gold, so they have planned to send the bull to a cowshed with a family member, with the hope that a worker at the cowshed will find the ornaments and return them.

HT spoke to Ravinder Sharma, retired director, research (DR) from Lala Lajpat Rai university of veterinary and animal sciences (LLRU) about what could be done to retrieve the gold. He suggested that the family should first take the animal to the hospital for an X-ray. “This will confirm whether the animal has swallowed the gold or not. Depending on the location of the gold inside the bull, it will be clear if it can be retrieved through surgery. The matter is a bit complex, but the possibility of the jewels coming out with the stool is possible.”