The 21-year-old engineering student who threw a puppy to its death from the terrace of his apartment complex in Vellore on October 24 was arrested and granted bail on Friday.
Vishesh Iyengar, the accused, is a final-year mechanical engineering student from a reputed college in Vellore. “The concerned person was arrested and he was granted bail in the court on Friday. It is a bailable offence. The puppy’s body was found buried near the accused’s residence and a post-mortem has been conducted,” said Karthik, Inspector of Katpadi police station.
The FIR was registered under Section 429 of Indian Penal Code (Mischief by killing or maiming cattle), Section 11 (1) (Treating animals cruelly) (l) (mutilates any animal or kills any animal in a cruel manner) of Prevention of Cruelty Act.
“If they are able to prove Section 429 then the person can get a jail term but that rarely gets proven. It is a long process, after post-mortem is done, then the reports take at least a month, then they have to collect all evidences, file a chargesheet and then send it to the court,” said Shravan Krishnan, animal rights activist.
According to the message which was received by Shravan from the caretakers of the puppy who are from the same college, “We took in a one-month-old puppy who was attacked by other big street dogs, badly bruised. We got him vaccinated, fed him daily and were so thankful for his presence in our lives. He was a small bundle of love and in no time everyone in the house got attached to him.”
“Sadly, one unfortunate day he wandered out of the house and reached the house of Vishesh Igneyar. This person, Vishesh, already had a history of torturing the street puppies by placing them at high heights and waiting for them to fall down. This animal, Vishesh, took the puppy to the terrace and threw him off and the puppy died on the spot,” the message continued.
Shravan had earlier told TNM Vishesh allegedly committed these crimes at his residence, from the terrace. An accompanying video in his Facebook post shows some people inspecting the fallen puppy. Seeing that it’s dead, they bury in a hole in the ground.
This is not first such incident. Last year, a puppy was thrown from the terrace by two medical students in Vellore, she was later adopted and named Bhadra. In another incident, four medical students from Christian Medical College (CMC) were suspended for stabbing and killing a monkey.