Telangana municipal staff poisons 100 dogs
Four suspended after horrific incident comes to light
Hyderabad: In a horrifying incident, a municipality staff in Vikarabad town, 75km from Hyderabad, poisoned more than 100 stray dogs and burnt their bodies at a garbage dump outside the town.
On the complaint of animal rights activists, who gathered the evidence of the poisoning and killing dogs, Vikarabad police have registered a first information report against the municipality staff, leading to the district collector suspending four of them.
While 50 dogs were given poisonous injections on Saturday, another 50 were killed on Sunday. The horror came to light when the activists belonging to Compassionate Society for Animals caught a truck of municipality loaded with the dead bodies of the canines.
Rajasekhar, police inspector of Vikarabad, said that the FIR was registered under the prevention of cruelty to animals and other relevant laws.
N.S. Pravalika, an activist, said that it was shocking that after the FIR was lodged on Saturday, the municipality staff killed more dogs on Sunday. “When we had gone to the garbage dump near Busaram forest to collector carcasses for post mortem, we found another truck bringing more carcasses”.
The activists questioned the staff who had brought the bodies and recorded their statement on video. According to the video one of the employees said that they were ordered by the Vikarabad municipal commissioner P. Srinivas Reddy to poison the dogs.
While the municipal commissioner denied the allegation, a probe by the district administration found prima facie evidence that the staff was involved in the killing of dogs.
“As per preliminary information it is confirmed that certain municipal staff are involved in the in the incident and it is in total contravention to section 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act,” the report of the district collector P. Venkatrama Reddy said.
Consequently the collector has ordered the suspension of four staff members including sanitary inspector B. Satyanarayana, two regular sanitary employees and another contract employee.
While the activists have preserved bodies of two poisoned dogs for the post mortem examination, other bodies were reportedly burnt by the municipal staff at the garbage dump.
“We will know the sort of poison used to kill the dogs after we get the post mortem report,” the police inspector said.