In a shocking example of just how far things can go wrong in rural India, villagers in Bhayeli, facing the menace of around 4,000 pigs -- which destroyed crop and attacked people -- decided enough was enough and set poison traps. Around 1,000 pigs died; but the story doesn't end there. Not knowing what to do with the carcasses, they burnt -- or half-burnt -- some, buried others and just left the rest to rot.

That was 10 days ago; till today, not a single senior official of the Vadodara District Panchayat is even aware of the problem. And it's a miracle that an epidemic hasn't already broken out. Experts say that gastroenteritis is the greatest and most immediate danger; they also say almost every rule regarding public health in the disposal of carcasses has been violated. (See box).

While District Development Officer (DDO) Anju Sharma was not available for comment, District Collector Anil Mukim said he would deploy resources with the support of the District Panchayat or, if necessary, the Vadodara Municipal Corporation to ensure that the carcasses were disposed of properly.

They won't have trouble locating the village: Just follow your nose. The first thing noticed was the absence of children on the roads; today, they play indoors. Then you see the reason why: Several carcasses lying scattered in the bushes and near village ponds, with dogs and vultures having a field day. There are no piles of corpses; it's just that at every turn and round every corner, there's a carcass to greet you.

As the Express Newsline team moved round the village, the carcasses were almost everywhere, even near the village pond. Bhiki Rajput of Indira Colony says the villagers have stopped washing clothes there because of the pigs lying nearby.

Several partially burnt pigs lay on the road leading to Bhayeli village from Vasna Road; a few yards away, there were others that had been left unburnt. ``Go a short distance beyond this place and you'll find several pigs dumped in ditches and bushes'', says Raman Solanki, a villager.

The problem originated in the practice of pig-breeders in the city of releasing the animals in nearby villages for rearing purposes. When there's a demand for the meat, they simply go back and recover as many as they need.

This time, however, the pigs went out of hand; villagers say there were almost 4,000 in just one village. The problems cropped up soon enough. ``I was bitten while attending the call of nature'', says 22-year-old Ashok Thakore. Vishram Shrimali suffered the same fate and had to take injections.

Thakore Patel, a farmer, says the annual loss of the farmers runs anywhere in five figures, annually, as the pigs destroyed vegetables, dangar and wheat.

That's when the villagers decided to strike back. That's also when the picture becomes a little hazy, because no one wants to own up to the decision to poison the animals. Ask them who did it and pat comes the reply, ``Maybe the sarpanch.''

While Sarpanch Smita Patel was not available for comment, her husband Kiran and village talati Suresh Patel denied that the panchayat had any role in the matter, but said there was no other way of dealing with the pigs. ``At every place, the villagers would have come across human settlements, so there was no question of dumping or burying them far away,'' Kiran says.

Besides, he says, the villagers had no choice. ``The fields had been devastated and many villagers bitten by the pigs. Several press notes were issued by us but nothing was done,'' he adds.

Asked whether the problem had been brought to the notice of higher-ups, the talati says, ``It would not have made any difference''.

And so the pigs were killed; poisoned. But where one set of problems ended, another set began. Disposing of the bodies proved trickier than the villagers thought: there were simply too many of them.

One method was to bury them. Jayantibhai Patel, a farmer, says: ``We dug a pit, dumped several pigs in it and scattered salt all over them.'' Another was to burn them, but with no one particularly interested in watching the carcasses burn, many were just half-burnt. A third method was to just let them be, and let nature take its own course.

That brought on the health problems. ``The moment anybody passes along the road, experience a vomiting sensation'', says Surajben Patanwadia, who is staying in her daughter's house after the pigs destroyed her mud hut.

The misery has set in deep. Ramanbhai is only half-joking when he says: ``It will be good if cholera breaks out and people die''.

District Epidemic Officer Dr C Ode claims the incident has not come to his notice. ``The best way to dispose of dead pigs is to bury them deep,'' he says. On the health fallout, he says there are chances of villagers suffering from nausea if the stool of poisoned pigs mixes with food or water.