Watch | Pigeons tied to rockets, fired to welcome APCC chief in AP

Congress activists at Vadapalli village welcomed Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) chief N. Raghuveera Reddy to a party meeting by tying live pigeons to Diwali rockets and setting it alight. The rockets went up and the pigeons fell dead after being roasted in the intense heat of the cracker burst.

The pigeons were stuffed into paper cones and sealed tight so they wouldn't flutter loose. The idea was to see the cracker burst high in the sky and the pigeons fly free. But the intense produced by the cracker burst killed the birds and they fell to the ground. Taking strong exception to the use of birds, members of the NGO People For Animals and the general secretary of the Asian Wildlife Foundation Prabhu Popireddy demanded that a case be booked against the Congress workers.