A woman in Bengaluru was booked for allegedly trying to kill eight puppies. This incident comes to light just a day after a man in Delhi was seen stabbing dogs.
According to the woman’s neighbours, Poonamma flung the puppies onto a boulder to teach the mother (of the pups) a lesson. The dog apparently gave birth in a drain next to her house, said a report in IBN Live.
Banglore Mirror reported that the dog, fondly called Ammu, is still wandering around where her litter was buried moaning and crying. Poonamma, wife of an ex-honorary flight lieutenant, lives in Jallahalli West neighbourhood. Seven of the eight puppies she bashed against a boulder died on the same day while the one that survived succumbed to the woman’s brutality the next day.
Poonamma’s neighbours, outraged by the incident, filed a complaint with Cupa (Compassion Unlimited Plus Action) on 17 March and the organization registered a complaint against Poonamma on the very same day with Peenya police station.
The neighbours allege that they tried stopping Poonamma from committing such a heinous act but in vain. The complaint they filed said that a woman in their vicinity flung eight puppies across the road and that the impact was so hard that some of the puppies’ intestines were out. It further said that the residents were agonized with Ammu’s wailing, as they could see her walking around ‘asking for help, trying to show’ them.
Poonamma’s neighbours, speaking to Banglore Mirror, said that she felt no repentance given that she casually said ‘accha nahi laga, fek diya’ (didn’t like it, threw it)
Police inspector B. Aiyanna Reddy said that Poonamma was released on bail after her arrest, but their reviewing CCTV footage to put together enough evidence to submit a charge sheet.
Maneka Gandhi, in her piece for Firstpost, writes that crimes against animals aren’t taken seriously. The offence, in India, has a Rs. 50 penalty attached to it. An example of how archaic laws are furthering the discrepancy between crime and justice.
The US, however, takes animal cruelty very seriously. As Gandhi points out in the article, the reason the FBI treats it as ‘top-tier federal crime’, is because they have recognized a link between animal abusers and their tendency to do the same with human beings. She quoted a survey which points at how more than 80 percent of criminals in American jails started out with mistreating animals.
Gandhi recognizes that animal cruelty must be severely criminalized before the offenders’ behaviour spreads to other aspects of society.