Social media plays big role in reporting animal abuse

On Sunday afternoon, a youngster was taken into custody by the T4 Maduravoyal police, for attacking and severely injuring a street dog. Kamal Bangar, who runs a pet cab service in the city, discovered that one of the community dogs was injured badly. “My neighbour, Rajesh, and I, take turns to feed the street dogs in our area. On the evening of September 24, I got a call from him saying that one of the dogs was injured and its eye was bleeding profusely. When we asked the shop owners in the vicinity, we found that a 24-year-old youngster who works at the grocers, had a history of ill-treating this particular dog. On Saturday, he had thrown a stone at this dog and badly injured the animal. We immediately rushed to the police station to file a complaint and took the dog to the vet,” she said. 

Kamal pointed out that the police officials were very helpful and immediately came to their help. “The officials took action and on Sunday, they sent a team to take the offender into custody. A CSR number was given to us and the officials ensured that the youngster was made aware of his offence. We will be pushing for the youngster to do community service at Blue Cross or any other animal-related NGO. If he sees the problems these community dogs face, he will be more compassionate about it,” added this animal lover. 

Antony Rubin, Honorary Animal Welfare Officer, who was a petitioner in the Bhadra case, said people needed a precedent. “After Bhadra’s case, people could relate more to animal abuse. Now, the entire nation is aware that people can be punished for such an offence. The heartening fact is that it is the residents who are coming forward to root for the animal which has been abused. And, social media has played a big role in bringing people together and mobilising efforts. Luckily, the number of people abusing animals is lesser in ratio than people coming forward for the animal,” said this activist. 

Psychologist Rajani Nandakumar pointed out that animal abuse needs to be checked early on. “Abusers who take pleasure in harming animals without provocation have an underlying psychological issue. It starts with abuse against animals, which may progress to abuse against younger children or women. It starts with children plucking wings of a butterfly and harming smaller animals until they’re caught, by which time it is too late. Early intervention can help,” she concluded.