In one corner of a field in Benaulim, a village along south Goa’s beach belt, a large crowd waits for a clandestine buffalo fight in silent anticipation. The quiet of a hot Sunday afternoon is ideal for this banned and bloody slugfest. Within minutes, two buffaloes charge at each other from a distance of 25 feet.

After locking horns for a few minutes, they lunge at each other, to the lusty cheering of a blood-thirsty audience. The animals bleed as the razor-sharp tips of their sweeping horns honed with broken bottles gore each other. A couple of hours later the fight is over — one of the animals is running away.

In Konkani, it is known as dhirio — a term used for buffalo and bull fighting. Bullfighting was not uncommon in Goa, but a court ruling put an end to it 10 years ago. These days, buffalo fighting rules, but even this is held secretly to ensure that the police, or animal right activists, don’t get a whiff of it.

But the activists have moved court — and the Bombay High Court last month ordered the Goa police to file a status report on 16 offences related to dhirio by June 5.

Once dhirio was the preserve of fishermen or labourers in need of entertainment. These days, some of the fights are organised by cash-rich Goan youth working overseas. “These youngsters hire a caretaker for the animal and bet overseas while the fight takes place in Goa,” says Edwin Colaco, a police inspector in Colva, a south Goan hub for dhirio.

Dhirio can make you very rich — or poor. The owners take bets and people in the crowd back their favourites. Several lakhs of rupees are lost or made in one game.

Over the last three years buffalo fighting has been gaining momentum, says Norma Alvares, president, People for Animals, Goa. After a spectator was killed by an enraged bull during one such fight, Alvares approached the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court, which banned bullfighting in 1997. The ban was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1998.

Locals believe that the ban on bulls has given a spurt to buffalo fights — though even these are illegal. Colaco can’t say how many owners of bulls or buffaloes have been arrested for this, but claims to have responded to an average of three tip-offs a month over the last year.

The actual number, Goans say, is much higher. On a single Sunday, two bullfights are held within a few hours of each other, says Anthony, a carpenter in Benaulim, whose house borders a field which is a popular dhirio venue.

Before the ban, bullfights were routinely announced with an air of challenge in local newspapers or over a loudspeaker perched on a vehicle cruising the village. Nowadays, fans get a notice of less than 30 minutes — for there is always the fear among organisers that the match may be disrupted. Word gets around through furtive text messages on mobile phones. Soon, there is a crowd of a few thousand people.

The short notice is also aimed at preventing efforts to disable the animals. Sometimes, the warring buffaloes are given feni, the local spirit, to liven up a match. Occasionally, a ritual is performed, along with a sacrifice, in the hope that it will lead to victory. “It is common for owners of fighter buffaloes to indulge in black magic,” says Albert, a buffalo owner who runs a transport business near Panjim.

In villages along the south Goan beach belt, the buffaloes that lazily munch in the fields are mostly those reared for the battlefield. Victor, a casual labourer, keeps bulls, but refuses to say how much he’s made over the years on dhirios. It could run into a few lakh rupees, says his friend. But Victor fondly remembers those days before the ban when he could make a neat packet by selling tickets for Rs 20 to a crowd of over 2,000 people.

He remembers when bulls were proudly walked across several villages to the venue, a red belt across the torso bearing their names and numbers. Bullfights were accompanied by music and sometimes even a flamboyant compere. After the ban, animals are quietly escorted on foot across several kilometres of melting asphalt. If the cops are suspected to be on the trail, they may even get to ride a van.

Some believe that the cops’ concern is superficial, for the police, when they do raid a fight, usually end up appearing at the fag end of it. On rare occasions, the owners of warring buffaloes are given a minor chase. The police, Alvares complains, don’t take the matter seriously enough. “If they can’t get hold of the owners of the fighting animals, why can’t they at least book the owner of the venue,” she questions.

Clearly, the sport has the support of the locals and a section of the administration. Says Francisco Sardinha, the south Goa Lok Sabha MP who has been promising to amend the law to legalise bullfighting in Goa, “What can the police do? At times they manage to stop the fight, at times they may be bribed into not doing so.”

Some Goa politicians own fighter bulls and graced bullfights as chief guests before the ban. “These politicians exert themselves to make sure that the police don’t respond quickly enough,” Alvares maintains.

The police have their own complaints. Though the law allows the confiscation of the animal, they are not trained to literally take a bull by its horns. Trying to round up an animal is violent enough, but in a raid the police are also often attacked with missiles ranging from heavy coconuts to bottles and stones. “My request for an accompanying veterinary surgeon with a tranquiliser gun to quieten the animal while on raids is still pending,” says Colaco.

Elsewhere, activists worry about animal torture. Buffaloes are often grievously injured. Some get paralysed or even die, says Vijay Samant, a civic and animal rights activist whose recent contempt petition against the state led the Bombay High Court to ask for a status report.

Parliamentarian Sardinha is more blasé when it comes to any talk of cruelty to animals. “Since they have no hands to fight, they bang their heads against each other. Do you expect them to embrace when they see each other,” he asks.

Buffalo owners argue that the animals only have a few years of life in the arena. In village Assolna, motorcycle taxi driver John Fernandes says he had to sell his two buffaloes for a small fraction of the Rs 35,000-40,000 that he’d bought each of them for. “They had gone old and weak after four to five years,” he says.

Meanwhile, Albert’s making hay. He says his prize buffalo, which he had bought for Rs 15,000, will fetch him around Rs 1 lakh in the fighting ring. The animal is always within eyeshot — tethered in the shade of a tree outside the house in the day and illuminated by streetlight at night. “Albert loves him much more than he loves me,” jokes his fiancée, Rita, a local beautician. Not enough, though, to spare him pain.