Latur, Oct 21 (PTI) As many as 15 sheep died after grazing in a field which had been sprayed with pesticide in Maharashtra's Latur district on Thursday, local people claimed.

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The incident took place at Sangavi village in Nilanga tehsil.

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Mehbub Maulasab Shaikh had taken his flock of 45 sheep to a field overgrown with grass in the morning, unaware that the farm owner had sprayed pesticide to kill weed a little earlier, said a local resident.

As soon as the sheep ate the grass, they began to pass out and 15 of them died by the afternoon, he said.

According to local people, farmers prefer to spray pesticides to remove weed as it is expensive to hire labourers to do the job by hand.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)