Dear All,
It is 3.00 AM in the morning of 15 October 2010. I probably can’t sleep tonight. In any case I wouldn’t sleep without letting all of you know about the heart rending barbarity of the NDMC dog catching squad that has shamed known canons of humanity and civility today, obsessed by its medieval sadism of inflicting trauma and wanton pain on a dumb, yet lesser manifestation of God we all know as the dog. By the time this is read by most of you the dog that I write about would probably have found his eternal peace, though I pray he recovers to full health. I ask you too to pray for him please. Currently lodged at Friendicoes Jangpura Vet Clinic you can take a look in case he survives the night ?
Couple of hours before the break of dawn at about 4.30 a.m in the morning of 14 Oct I woke up to loud, extremely wild, canine shrieks and cries – apparently of overwhelming pain at a short distance from my hostel flat at the Rafi Marg at Parliament Street. The Street had been barricaded and sealed at 12 the same night for the morning’s CWG walkathon event supposed to pass through this road later? I came out into my Verandah on the fifth floor and saw a dog being forcibly dragged from the approaching Parliament Street by 3 or 4 men into a waiting NDMC Van. I rushed downstairs and onto this adjacent road but was stopped by the Security personnel who informed me that the road had been sealed for all kinds of movement except the NDMC dog catching squad that had brutally put a steel catching wire around this dog’s neck and were trying to put him in a cage inside the Van. The dog, an old mild mannered canine is known to belong to the adjacent UNI building and according to the version of the Security Personnel on duty was sleeping when the NDMC men suddenly pounced on him. All my shouting and protestations to the brutes to let him go fell on deaf ears. Within the next five minutes the Van was gone.
In the evening today as I drove back home, at about 9.45 PM I witnessed a lot many new canines roaming the Parliament Street and scaring each other away. Were there alien and strange dogs released by the NDMC now that the event was over I pondered? With these thoughts in mind I had barely entered the premises of our building that I saw a dog lying motionless on one side of the pathway – as if asleep – unresponsive to my hoots and horns – so that I may park my Car? I came out of the car, engine running, walked towards the dog lit up by the bright lights of the car. What I saw was a real shocker and shook the daylights out of me. It was the same dog that was dragged in the morning, now lying in a pool of blood, with wire gashes all around his neck and foul smelling wounds, infested with small ant like maggots all over those wounds? He lay lifeless and all that had been left of his healthy body of yesterday was a meak, boney carcass that had lost most of its blood and was dehydrated perhaps to the last drop of water? I stood there stunned for a moment not knowing what to do. I rushed to get him water and a bowl waking him up to drink but he couldn’t. He coild barely open his eyes. I could now decipher the whole puzzle. The NDMC team that had violently dragged this poor chap with a steel wire in its sleep in the morning had now thrown him back sometime in the evening after the CWG event at the same Street alongwith some other new dogs from God knows where. I immediately called up Amit Chaudhary at about 10 PM and explained the situation to him. Amit was very moved and offered to rush from Gurgaon but said it would take him an hour. I informed Amit that the dog having lost most of its blood, had passed out and we were up against time. I told Amit that I would call Geeta at Friendicoes and he should contact Gautam for an ambulance immediately. In the event Gautam’s phone was non-responsive and Geeta had switched off hers? I then called up one of the most friendly and ever willing guardians at Friendicoes that goes by the name of Ram, who immediately sent an ambulance to get the poor dog picked up and brought into the Friendicoes clinic. I took the driver’s mobile No. from Ram and kept calling the driver, to fix a familiar point midway for him to meet me and from there on follow my car upto the place lest we lose precious time. Amit kept calling meantime, wanting to come but then I assured Amit that he had just been taken by Ram to their clinic for his treatment there – provided he survived that?
The Ambulance reached in 15 minutes and I escorted it in my car to guide it home. The dog was in a very very bad state and had hardly any thing left in him to resist the lifting by the Friendicoes team. I sent it to the clinic and called Ram an hour later. He confirmed that the dog was indeed very critical and had lost most of its blood and extremely dehydated. He was put on I.V, painkillers and antibiotic immediately besides being given a dressing for the gashes around the entire circumference of his neck region.
One of us, Prabha Jaganathan, had earlier reported eye-witness accounts of a similar cruelty by the use of tongs and steel wires to catch CWG dogs and the resultant fatality that had claimed the life of one of her stray dogs – one she used to feed and care for verily like her own kith and kin. Lisa Warden had sought to know whether lethal implements like this were actually used, that were a sure recipe for cruelty and fatality. This sordid and pathetic account marks for a confirmatory sequel to that tragedy unfortunately. I am saddened beyond words and any expression of that grief. Such bestiality and vandalism on the weakest of the weak by a civic agency of the State, has no place in any society that chooses to call itself civilized. What is the pride of having held these games of shame worth ? Built on the crumbling edifice of all human values and dignity as it is. I write to urge you to unequivocally condemn and protest this patent barbarity by the NDMC of deploying lethal tools like tongs and steel loops for dog catching etc, by writing to the officialdom at all levels, including the AWBI. Decisive remedial legal/administrative measures also need to be pondered to put a stop once and for all to such decadent practices by the civic agencies. Police action is an option for violation of PCA 1960 and relevant laws by NDMC & MCD. Continued contravention of law and failure to contest the same will only embolden the violators and be deemed as our silent assent to their shameful misdemeanour. As a citizen who believes in upholding the law of the land I also strongly urge the NDMC Chairman and Secretary to take immediate notice of these merciless incidents and initiate action suo-moto, to bring the culprits that inflicted this inhuman atrocity to book immediately lest legal action becomes inevitable.
Sincerely Yours
( JAVED IQBAL )
Copy forwarded to :-
1. The Hon’ble Union Forest Minister, Govt of India.
2. The Hon’ble Lt Governor of Delhi, Govt of NCT of Delhi.
2. The Hon’ble Chief Minister, Govt of NCT of Delhi.
3. The Chief Secretary, Govt of Delhi.
4. The Chairman, AWBI Govt of India.
5. The Commissioner of Police, Delhi Police, PHQ Delhi
6. The Chairman, NDMC, New Delhi.
7. The Commissioner MCD, Govt of Delhi.