Gurgaon/Chandigarh, Nov 10 (IANS) Authorities in Gurgaon have invoked Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code to banish pigs from the municipal limits of the commercial hub adjoining the national capital.

Issuing the order, District Magistrate Rajinder Kataria has asked the civic joint commissioner to ‘get the pigs captured and to ensure that the stray pigs are not found wandering’ within the civic area.

In fact, the order says the civic agency ‘would ensure that pigs do not, in any case, manage to come back or are brought back’ to the town.

The action follows the district magistrate’s judicial observation that the ‘number of unconfined and wandering pigs moving in an uncontrolled manner on the roads and other places’ in Gurgaon ‘has reached an alarming proportion’.

This, the district magistrate’s spokesman said, caused frequent accidents, pig bites led to health hazards, and pig-caused littering of garbage created unhygienic conditions and health hazards, ‘endangering human life, health and safety’.

The district magistrate, therefore, ‘banned with immediate effect’ the presence of pigs not only within the municipal limits but ‘further up to a distance of two kilometres radius all around the municipal town’.