A mother and son were booked by Pune rural police, on Thursday for allegedly killing their pet dog by hanging it from a tree. The alleged incident occurred in the Pirangut area of Mulshi tehsil in Pune. The case was registered against Prabhavati Jagtap and her son Omkar Jagtap who had the dog with them for 8 years.
The incident gained attention after Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray had raised the incident on X (formerly Twitter). “I just came across a very, very heartbreaking image of a dog being hung to death by its owner's family in Pune. I am shocked beyond words to see how humans can behave this way. Beyond elections and the other stress of duty, I am appealing to @PuneCityPolice to take strict action against those guilty of this. It’s inhumane. Pets are family too,” Aaditya Thackeray wrote.
According to a PTI report, Paud Road police station senior inspector Santosh Girigosavi said, the incident took place on October 22 when Prabhavati allegedly assaulted their pet Labrador with a stick. Following this, her son Omkar hanged the canine from a tree. Girigosavi said that they had been booked under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.
The complaint was filed by Padmini Stump, an animal activist who runs Mission Possible Foundation which operates a shelter home for dogs.
As per PTI, Stump said that initially the family had called up a dog lover from Pimpri and asked her to come and take the dog away. However, the duo later sent visuals of the dog hanging from a tree. Stump said that she and people with her rushed to register an offence against them.
While speaking to ANI, she said that ten minutes after asking time for arrangements they received a text from Omkar Jagtap asking them not to send anybody along with a photo of the alive dog and a video of the dog hanging. After Stump filed the FIR, she brought the dog to Pune City in her car for a post-mortem examination.
When asked why the family had decided to kill the dog, one of the reasons highlighted by Stump was that the dog’s veterinarian had suggested conducting a rabies test. "Presuming that the pet has rabies, they might have killed it," she said. Meanwhile, the post-mortem revealed that the dog was ‘mercilessly’ beaten and hanged, Stump claimed.