Eight pups poisoned in Virar; six cats thrown away from Malad society

A screengrab from the CCTV footage of the Manavsthal building in Malad shows the watchmen huddling a cat into a bag to throw it. Picture/Hanif Patel

The police have booked eight people allegedly involved in two separate cases of animal cruelty. In one of the incidents, 22 puppies near a housing society were thrown into a remote area, while eight other puppies were poisoned, of which, five died. In another incident, over cats were allegedly thrown away, of which, one of them was pregnant.

On Wednesday, Mitesh Jain, the Honorary District Animal Welfare Officer of the Animal Welfare Board of India, received a call from Kunal Ghate, a resident of Virar. Ghate said that someone had poisoned eight puppies near the building. While five puppies had already died, the rest were admitted to the Karuna Trust clinic.

Pups thrown away

Jain said Ghate also told him that 22 puppies living in the premises of the MHADA building number 13 were missing since Tuesday. "Locals said the building watchman Bhola Shastri, and cleaning staff Pappu Paswan and Ravi Varma had, at the behest of a teacher, allegedly thrown the pups into bushes. "We found 11 pups. They were reunited with their mothers after 50 hours, but the other 11 are still missing," Jain said.

"We have registered a case against the watchmen, cleaning staff and a teacher living in the building, and unknown persons who poisoned the puppies," said a police officer from Arnala police station. They were booked under sections 428, 429, 34, 11 (1) (a) of the Animal Cruelty Act.

Cats gone missing

In another incident, the Malwani police on Thursday booked four people, including a government officer appointed by the deputy registrar and three security guards, for throwing over six cats from their building premises.

Arvind Rao, an animal lover, reported the crime. The police have registered a case against the security guards identified as Dilip Kumar, Indal Singh, Pintu Kumar Sharma and Nityanand Samant (the government officer). Rao said the security guards told him that they got rid of the cats on the instructions of Samant. "I want the cats returned to the society premises, as this world is for all to coexist," said Rao.

Meanwhile, a police officer from Malwani police station said that the accused have been booked under Section 119 of the Animal Cruelty Act.

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates