Stop this now

As instances of animal cruelty become more common in the city activists suggest ways to curb the growing menace.

It has not been very long since the horrific video of a dog being thrown off a terrace in Chennai went viral. However, incidents of animal cruelty continue to prevail and in most cases, go unreported. Closer home in Mumbai, recently, residents of a society in a premium neighbourhood hired a cleaner to get rid of 11 newborn puppies from their campus. The pups were tied inside a black polythene bag and thrown into a garbage bin. Even though passers by eventually rescued them, the incident was one more shocking reminder of the heinous treatment animals are subjected to.

Crimes against animals often go unreported and unpunished, and they are not recorded in a central database, therefore accurate statistics are hard to come by, points out Nikunj Sharma from Peta. “Animal protection organisations have been reporting an increase in the number of reports of crimes against animals. At the same time, with increased awareness about animal protection, more people are also speaking up. Reports to Peta India of crimes against animals have approximately doubled in the last five years,” he says.

City-based activist Fizzah Shah blames the space crunch for increasing acts of such cruelty, “Say for instance a dog has been living around the building for the longest time. But when it begins to have puppies, that’s when residents grow intolerant and want to get rid of the dog and her puppies. Only recently we received a call from a society in Goregaon asking us to take away the puppies and dogs in their society. We had no option but to put our foot down because according to Animal Birth Control act of 2001, it is a crime to dislocate animals that have been neutered and sterilised. People should understand that animals and humans need to co-exist, they have equal rights in the resources just as humans.” She also stresses on the need to adopt strays. “We encourage people to adopt stray dogs. Poisoning and killing is not the solution. Instead of investing huge sums of money on expensive breeds, we always appeal to people to adopt a stray dog.”

Abodh Aras, chief executive officer (CEO) of one of Mumbai’s famous NGOs, The Welfare of Stray Dogs (WSD) emphasises on the need to have more stringent laws and penalties, “We have been having such cases since many years now, it’s just that earlier people were not vocal, now they are. Twenty years ago we had a case, where a dog’s face was scalded with due to an acid attack. We once had a case, where a dog’s penis was tied with a wire — cruelty has been happening for a long time. What one needs to do is amend the redundant act, which was formulated in the 1960’s. The fine back then, a sum of '50, means nothing now and won’t curb the perpetrators. What we need is for more people to petition and tell the government to make more stringent laws.”

Acts of cruelty to animals are indicative of a deep mental disturbance. Research in psychology and criminology shows that people who commit acts of cruelty to animals often don’t just stop there — many of them move on to hurting other animals, children, women or other people, asserts Nikunj of Peta.

“In a study of battered women, nearly 60 per cent said they had partners who had harmed or killed their dogs or other animals. While such records are not kept in India, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has found that a history of cruelty to animals is one of the traits that regularly appear in its computer records of serial rapists and murderers.”

Animal activist Antony Rubin who saved Bhadra, the dog who was flung off a three-storey building in Chennai, says that animal abusers are danger to everyone, who would take out their anger on whoever is available to them — human or animal. “It’s a huge issue and the government needs to take this seriously. People who are animal abusers will eventually become human abusers too. They are psychologically disturbed and need counselling. At the Chennai High Court, we have made a plea to have three trials, we want them to do community service, we want the perpetrators to pay for all the expenses and most importantly, they should seek psychiatric treatment. We will be having our next trial next week and the judge in the past had revealed that law against animal cruelty are toothless,” he says.

Ask him about Bhadra and he willingly shares the details, “She has a cast on, she has a fractured spinal cord and has two fractured femurs. We are going to hold a Nationwide protest on August 21, where animal lovers from across the country will be holding rallies and requesting the government to make laws against animal cruelty stringent. This has to stop!”