How India’s Prevention of Cruelty against Animals law is failing animals (and us, by extension) (theindian express)

A rash of reports of cruel attacks on animals have surfaced in 2016, most recently when a resident of Dwarka area in Delhi – an unemployed man with a history of alcoholism and a domestic violence charge – allegedly used a hacksaw to chop off a front and a hind leg of a 2-month-old stray puppy. He invited the puppy in, offering it food and acquired a scratch in the process from the excited creature when it eagerly reached for it. Flying into a rage, he revenged the scratch by committing the dastardly deed on the defenseless little animal.

What makes this ruthless act ‘unexceptional’ is that it is merely the latest among the several reported acts of cruelty against animals (and possibly thousands of undocumented ones) that have been committed this year in India. Hardly a fortnight ago, a monkey was reportedly tied, beaten and killed by some students of Christian Medical College, Vellore and a leopard was brutally beaten to death by the villagers in Sohna village near Gurgaon. A police horse died in Dehradun due to beatings it suffered from MLA Ganesh Joshi at a rally in Dehradun. Other reports – often with outraging video evidence – have surfaced this year from Kerala, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad in which dogs and puppies have been burnt alive, stabbed, thrown out from heights and smashed to death against boulders. Yet, all those perpetrators are out there, walking scot-free – perhaps within a few hours of indictment. One doesn’t have to be a professed animal lover to feel appalled at these wanton acts of cruelty and murder.