LONDON, July 27: A sacred bull with bovine tuberculosis who sparked a row between a British Hindu temple and the Welsh government over whether he should live or die has finally been killed, officials said on Friday.

Shambo, who lived at the Skanda Vale community in Llanpumsaint, west Wales, was put down with a lethal injection Thursday night, a Welsh Assembly spokesman said, after a stand-off between monks and police over access to the retreat.

Officers had to force protestors — many of whom had come from abroad after hearing of the six-year-old Fresian's plight — to back off from its enclosure to allow health officials to take it away.

Monks said their shrine had been desecrated as Shambo was taken away for killing on Thursday evening. Up to 100 Shambo supporters began chanting and praying early on Thursday as they locked the gate and blocked the lane to the isolated community with a parked car. When officials finally got through and the animal was taken away, many called out farewells or wept. One of the monks, Brother Michael, said a charity in India had offered to take the bullock but the authorities refused.

“How is this acceptable? How can killing be acceptable?” he said. “Shambo represents the sanctity of life.” The row over Shambo's fate dates back to April, when health officials ordered that the animal be killed after testing positive for bovine TB, in line with government regulations. But the monks and nuns at Skanda Vale said that killing Shambo would be against their religion and launched a court battle to try and save the creature.

Some 20,000 people signed an Internet petition opposing the killing but the Court of Appeal in London ruled on Monday that it should go ahead. The move was justified even though the Hindu community would consider the bull's slaughter to be a sacrilegious act and “a very grave and serious interference with their religious rights,” judge Malcolm Pill said.

Ramesh Kallidai, secretary general of the Hindu Forum of Britain, said the slaughter was based on a “subjective and unreliable” test.

—AFP