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A Hyderabad resident was in for a shock on Monday, when she saw a dog tied to the back of a truck and dragged on a highway.
Rebecca Gupta, the passerby, noticed the German Shepherd and put up pictures on social media.
"Is there no kindness and humanity left in Hyderabad any more? This just happened earlier today on the Shamshabad Road/Bangalore highway. This helpless German Shepard dog was tied by all fours and hung from the back of this lorry and dragged for miles to his death. I can only imagine the agony that dog must have gone through," she wrote in a post.
@KTRTRS This helpless German Shepard dog was tied by all fours and hung from the back of this lorry and dragged for miles to his death on the Shamshabad Road today.
— rebecca gupta (@GuptaRebecca) April 2, 2018
Help us track down and punish the driver, crew and owner of this lorry/ transport company.
lorry no.TS 12 VA 7037 pic.twitter.com/iM7jvSuvvS
The images soon began spreading on Facebook and Twitter.
Rebecca had posted the number of the lorry (TS 12 VA 7037) with an appeal to help track down the driver, crew and owner of the lorry and transport company. She had also tweeted the images to Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister KT Rama Rao, who is active on Twitter.
Later on Monday, Rebecca posted an update saying the police had tracked down the owner of the vehicle and the driver with the help of the number plate. Activists from People for Animals (PFA) also helped in finding the truck.
The RGIA police said that they had registered a case under Section 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.
"For now, they are claiming that they had no idea that the dog was tied up behind the truck. We will first establish who committed the act, and then proceed legally," an investigating official told TNM.
This is not the first instance when such a case of animal cruelty has come to light in the city. Last year, there were multiple reports of dogs being poisoned, shot and in some cases, even burnt to death. Earlier this year, 30 men from a gated community in LB Nagar went on a rampage and caned around 50 stray dogs, leaving some of them bleeding profusely.
The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, formulated in 1960, has not been amended to keep pace with current times, because of which the fine for animal cruelty can be as low as Rs 10 in some cases.