The Delhi Police on Tuesday registered a case against unknown persons who allegedly cut off the tail and ear of a stray dog in south Delhi's Hauz Khas area.
According to police, a Hauz Khas resident found the injured dog and brought it to an NGO yesterday afternoon, following which they approached the police and lodged a complaint.
Police registered a case under IPC Section 429 (Mischief by killing or maiming animal) and provisions of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act at Safdarjung Enclave police station in connection with the matter, a senior official said.
Meanwhile, police are obtaining CCTV footage pertaining to the past few days from premises at the lane in Hauz Khas Village where the dog was found in order to ascertain identity of the accused, the official added.
This incident comes days after the arrest of a 28-year-old engineer Nakul Mishra from Lucknow, who had killed a puppy and attacked three dogs in the neighbouring Green Park area.
This also follows an incident in Mumbai where a traffic police personnel was arrested and later released on bail for the brutal assault on a stray dog, which led to permanent blindness in one eye at Andheri on April 5.
The word 'menace' has come to be associated with 'stray dogs' of late as such instances are seemingly on the rise.
Last month, eight puppies in the Jalahalli West area in north-west Bengaluru were all killed, allegedly by a local woman a week ago, who said she wanted to teach the mother dog, who was living in a drain outside her house with the puppies, a lesson.
The woman, Ponamma, was arrested, and charged with cruelty to animals for the attack on March 15.
In late 2015, the Kerala government also mulled cracking down on stray dogs after claiming that incidents of dog-bites started rising in the state, to more than 1 lakh a year.
Mass protest followed an incident where more than 40 dogs were allegedly killed on orders from a local panchayat.
The Supreme Court later directed all states to sterilise and vaccinate stray dogs under the supervision of Animal Welfare Board of India. It also allowed municipal authorities in the country to eliminate stray dogs which are irretrievably ill or mortally wounded.
In the first week of April, the apex court constituted a committee headed by a retired high court judge to submit a report on the rising incidents of dog bites, especially in Kerala. It will submit its first report in 12 weeks.
In a piece for the DailyO, Gyananth Singh writes:
Controversy over culling of homeless dogs keeps surfacing time and again as municipal laws in some states permit authorities to resort to killing to deal with the menace of stay dogs...While Article 21 guarantees Right to Life, Article 51A(g) enjoins upon citizens to have compassion for all living creatures. A balance, therefore, needs to be struck.
PTI inputs