JUST SPAMMING | A Problem Doggedly Chasing Us Sans Solution

It’s a problem that has been doggedly pursuing us with no respite. Connected with dogs and dog bites, the problem has even assumed legal contours and operational difficulties. Last week, a tea shop owner landed in jail in Chennai because he clobbered a stray dog to death. Since the dog almost dug its sharp canines into the flesh of an elderly man after chasing him down the road when he came to the shop for a cup of tea, the shopkeeper lost his cool. We are not sure what the police in Mylapore would have done if the dog had bitten the old man and had infected him with rabies. Whatever, we have laws in place to protect animals and even uphold their rights. So the law would not be a silent spectator when a man beats a dog to death.

Perhaps the law showing its teeth on those being cruel to animals, dogs in particular, is not new to the State. Way back in 2016, two budding doctors were seen throwing down a frightened dog from the third floor of a building in a video that went viral, creating outrage. The medical students, Gautam Sudarshan and Ashish Pal, said that they did all that just for fun. But that frolic did not go well with those who watched that video and animal rights activists came in pursuit of them and the dog. Immediate action was taken and the medicos paid a fine of Rs 2 lakh to the Animal Welfare Board of India. Then the dog was adopted by another animal rights activist and his mother, who christened her Bhadra.

Whatever, Bhadra found a happy home and even had visitors calling on her as she became so popular due to the video of her hurling from the terrace going viral. Only for the two doctors, trouble kept knocking at their doors. First they were arrested under Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and suspended from their college. Later, in 2021, the Madras High Court again ordered them to donate Rs 25,000 to the Blue Cross of India for animal welfare. Bhadra, who was a five-month puppy when one of the medics flung her from the building with the other capturing the action sequence in camera, survived the fractures.

Even in the case of the dog in Mylapore, which perhaps died without a name, it was video of it being clubbed to death that landed the 56-year-old teashop owner in trouble. He has been booked under Section 325 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The animal rights activist who pursued the case even found the carcass of the dog in a dustbin that enabled the authorities to conduct a postmortem. But that incident did not garner due publicity because another issue relating to dogs, or rather pets, continues to rage in Chennai. It’s over ‘microchipping’ pet dogs, a massive project by the Greater Chennai Corporation that has caused serpentine queues in front of the venues meant for that.

Apart from making microchipping mandatory, the Corporation has fixed the deadline for obtaining licenses for pets as November 23 that has put many pet- owners in a quandary. Also peeved over the order making muzzling of pets in public compulsory, a city based NGO that primarily fights for animal rights has moved the Madras High Court seeking extension of the deadline for registration of animals and getting the license from the Corporation and also against the order to muzzle pets in public. There are many complaints against the license regime and one of them is that a portal opened for the purpose would not allow a user to apply for more than four licenses.

Dog lovers, particularly those running shelters and those involved in rescuing animals in distress, having more than four animals with them are apprehensive of taking care of dogs and cattle in bulk for the law now requiring each one of them to be registered without allowing them to register more than four. So the restrictions imposed on animal care have come to the detriment of professional animal care-givers, leave alone animal lovers. So they want the court to interfere and let them have a free run with animals. They also have a plethora of complaints against the portal meant for registering animals as they claimed was showing errors. Whatever, animal lovers are in a quandary.

It was in such a situation there were complaints of many pets, including pedigree breeds, being abandoned in some places, giving rise to the speculation that it could have been prompted by the new regulations like fixing microchips and registering with the Corporation. Many people might have found the rules too difficult to comply with and taken the decision to abandon the pets themselves. It could be the fear that they would be fined Rs 5000. That perhaps explained the rescue of four Labradors and one Dachshund among the many pets rescued in the very recent days, the NGO opposing the Corporation norms in court says.

The NGO claims that muzzling of all dogs in public places, irrespective of the breed, age and health, was actually a violation of the laws, guidelines and court orders relating to prevention of cruelty to animals and fears that the new norms could only engender an environment ripe for harassment of animal lovers. Does that mean that issues relating to man’s best friend are intertwined with the man himself?