Mumbai: Cat tied up and burnt alive inside Oshiwara complex

Butt's cat Soha's burnt body among the ashes

While on the one hand, railway engineers sawed off a portion of a Vile Parle station bridge last week to rescue a trapped kitten and a Mercedes owner took on Rs 10,000 worth of damage to his car to rescue a cat stuck in the engine, on the other, some residents of an Oshiwara society burnt a cat alive on Monday.

Animal lover Shahnaz Butt, 48, who lives at Gamdevi Mahada Complex behind Oshiwara Police Station, has alleged that someone tied her three-year-old cat Soha to a tree branch and set her on fire. Butt, who takes care of 80 stray cats and dogs inside the complex said the video of Soha has gone viral, where one can see that her face has been completely burnt and her legs are tied.

The Oshiwara police are waiting for the postmortem report to file a case. Butt told mid-day, "I look after all the animals in my society but there are several animal haters who beat them up and even poison them. On Monday, around 10am, someone from my society came running to inform me that a cat had been burnt behind Sai Siddhi Society inside our complex. I rushed there and was shocked to see my Soha had been burned alive. I don't know who did this, but somebody from the society is responsible, I am sure. I approached Oshiwara Police Station along with Vimlesh Navani, the animal welfare office appointed by the high court, to file an FIR but the cops have sent her body for a postmortem after a panchnama. No case was registered."

Animal lovers in the area with activist Shahnaz Butt

Another animal lover in Oshiwara, Rita Taneja, who feeds around 400 stray dogs and 150 cats every day in Oshiwara, Jogeshwari and Lokhandwala said, "It is unbelievable how somebody could do this to a cat. This is inhuman and the culprit should be punished. There are quite a few people who beat up stray animals every day in the society."

Another resident of the society and animal lover, Rukhsar Sheikh, said, "Dried tree branches were being burnt here for the past three days, and on Monday morning we found the cat, too, had been tied up and burnt." Navani visited the spot and gave a written complaint to the police. He said, "The culprit should be booked. I have accompanied police officers to Parel hospital where the postmortem has been done and the report is expected on Tuesday. The cops will register an FIR after the report."

Navani has, so far, registered more than 200 FIRs in Mumbai for crimes against animals. An officer from the Oshiwara police station said, "We are waiting for the postmortem report to know the exact cause of death. Only then will we file a case in the matter."

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