Destined to be boiled, skinned and then cooked in a spicy gravy, rat is the most popular dish in a village called Kumarikata in Assam. Shoppers buy freshly-caught rat that the local farmers say are hunted to avoid damage to their fields.
AFP
Rats have become a source of income for the poor and many tribals in Assam. A kilogram of rat meat which is considered as a delicacy is sold at about Rs 200. "We put traps in the fields as the rats eat people's paddy," Samba Soren, a rat vendor at Kumarikata, told AFP.
The traps are placed at the entrance of the rat-holes in the evening and the rodents are caught as they come out to scavenge.?The rat race never ends - the vendors have to work at night to make sure that the other predators do not get the dead rats first.
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