Mumbai: No shelter yet for 35 pets caged in Virar flat

Dogs at the Virar flat. Pic/Hanif Patel

A day after finding decomposed carcasses of a cat and a dog, and 35 pets living in unhygienic conditions in a flat, the Virar police are yet to find an NGO that will give shelter to the animals so that they can arrest their owner. The police had, on Monday, booked Shehnaz Jani, 55, who has rented the 3BHK flat in Arnala, on charges of animal cruelty.

"Many NGOs have approached us to provide the 20 cats and 15 dogs veterinary care but none of them have agreed to adopt these animals that are still at Jani's rented flat. We will be able to arrest her only when the animals are shifted to shelter homes," said Arnala senior inspector Appasaheb Lengare.

Sources told mid-day that Jani, before shifting to the Virar flat in March, lived in Nalasopara East and was forced to vacate the flat there over a similar incident. Hannah Silveira, the secretary of the housing society in Arnala, told mid-day that Jani, before shifting to Virar, had claimed she was in a financial crisis. "She [Jani] told her landlady Daisy Pereira that one of her daughters was a heart patient and it was important for her to relocate at the earliest. She had not paid her security deposit or the monthly rent," Silveira said.

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"We have not seen Jani come out of the with the pets to walk them ever since she moved here. We often hear unusual sounds of the animals from her flat, especially after midnight. It seems the pets are being tortured," said Silveira.

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