Mayor orders probe into death of stray dogs in Behala

Mayor Sovan Chatterjee on Friday ordered a probe into the death of 20 stray dogs at Diamond City, West, a housing complex in Behala. It was alleged that some residents of the housing complex had put 20 stray dogs to rest, either by poisoning them or by beating them to death.

Some local residents informed Trinamool Congress MLA, Deboshree Roy and an animal lover about the matter who in turn gave a memorandum to Sarsuna police station and visited the housing complex.

The residents alleged that Roy along with her associates had damaged some rooms of the complex.

Later, they put up a road block in protest. Roy on the other hand brushed aside the allegation and said that the residents had put up the road block to divert the attention of people.

The mayor, himself being an animal lover on Friday ordered an inquiry and said steps would taken against those who would be found guilty.

Animal lovers in the city said though general affection for stray dogs in the city has gone up, there were some who were in favour of killing them.  They give them food laced with poison and within 15 minutes the dogs die. After that, the body is either buried or set on fire.

It may be recalled that the Kerala government had issued an order in 2015 to put all the stray dogs to rest as it thought that the dogs had become a major threat.

However, the government was forced to withdraw the order following countrywide protest. The NGOs working for stray dogs said that a massive campaign had been organised requesting people to adopt stray dogs.

Most of the stray dogs were vaccinated and can be used as guard dogs, they maintained. A rally was recently taken out in Kolkata by Love and Care for Animals requesting people not to kill stray dogs.