While the authorities focus on image-building ideas with little scope of practical result following the death of the police horse Shaktiman, animal rights activists have stressed that instead of being politicised, lessons learnt from this entire episode should be acknowledge and incorporated in to the legal framework with stronger penal provisions instead of the present paltry penalty of Rs 50.
Shaktiman’s death has elicited emphasis being laid by animal rights activists to bring about the necessary amendments in the law and discontinuation of ‘unnecessary’ use of animals in the police force.
People For Animals, Uttarakhand member secretary Gauri Maulekhi who is also an advisor to the Union Women and Child Development minister Maneka Gandhi said that the death of Shaktiman should be taken as a lesson.
She said, “Instead of politicising Shaktiman’s death, we need to make sure that lessons are learnt from this sacrifice of Shaktiman and penalty provision is updated to strengthen the Act with the aim to deter the occurrence of animal cruelty acts. We are campaigning to get the monetary penalty provisioned in the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act updated and increased enough to exert a deterrent effect. This should also be taken as a lesson to phase out the unnecessary use of horses and other animals in the police.”
Referring to the issues delaying implementation of such measures, Maulekhi said that “The Union minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar is responsible for this state of affairs as he has been sitting on the draft Animal Welfare Bill for two years now due to which the updating like increased penalty have not been achieved till now.”