Shocking Animal Cruelty: FIR Filed Against Army Personnel, PETA Calls for Action

Chennai(The Uttam Hindu): The police have registered an FIR against a person who had beaten a dog to death near the army quarters here in Tamil Nadu's Pallavaram, officials said. The People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India collaborated with Samaran Thamarai, an NGO, and Siddharth of Blue Cross of India to get a FIR registered under Section 325 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, by the Pallavaram Police Station.

The CCTV footage showed the accused, named A. Paidi Raju, Lance Havildar, mercilessly beating the dog with a stick until the dog succumbed to the injuries. The army has also taken cognisance of the matter. "Those who abuse animals often move on to harming humans. It is imperative that members of the public report cases of cruelty to animals such as this one for everyone's safety," says PETA India Cruelty Response Coordinator Sinchana Subramanyan. "The fear and suffering the dog must have experienced before succumbing to this abuse is unthinkable. PETA India is calling on the public and housing colonies to address the community dog population crisis by getting the dogs on their premises sterilised through local NGOs or the municipal government."

PETA India recommends that perpetrators of animal abuse undergo psychiatric evaluation and receive counselling, as abusing animals indicates deep psychological disturbance. Research shows that people who commit acts of cruelty to animals are often repeat offenders who move on to hurting other animals, including humans. A study published in Forensic Research and Criminology International Journal said, "Those who engage in animal cruelty were three times more likely to commit other crimes, including murder, rape, robbery, assault, harassment, threats, and drug/substance abuse."

PETA India -- whose motto reads, in part, that "animals are not ours to abuse in any way" -- and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview, notes that community dogs are often subjected to human cruelty or struck by cars and commonly suffer from starvation, disease, or injury. Every year, many end up in animal shelters, where they languish in cages or kennels for lack of enough good homes. The solution is simple: sterilisation. Sterilising one female dog can prevent 67,000 births over six years, and sterilising one female cat can prevent 420,000 births over seven years.