In a shocking case of cruelty against animals, two stray puppies were strangled to death and the carcasses hanged at a vacant plot in Delhi's Dwarka Sector 9 on Wednesday.
The body of one of the dogs was found hanging from a tree, while the other was discovered lying near a wall.
The Delhi Police has registered a case under Indian Penal Code section 429 (mischief by killing or maiming animal) was registered on Wednesday at Dwarka South police station. The officials are analysing CCTV footage of the area to identify the culprit.
The matter came to light when senior Congress leader and lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi took to Twitter posting a screenshot of a Facebook post informing about the alleged incident.
The screenshot also showed the purported photos of two dogs. One of them is seen hanging from a tree, while the carcass of the other is lying on ground.
The Facebook post claimed that the incident took place on Tuesday evening.
"This is unbelievable. How. Anyone can think of doing this, much less do it, is unimaginable. Logic says no but the full force of the heart says the perpetrators must meet same fate as victims," Singhvi tweeted.
As per the post in the Facebook group ?SGACC (Sanjay Gandhi Animal Care Center), the puppies were killed in an empty plot next to Azad Hind Apartments in sector 9 in Dwarka on the evening of 27th December when they were left alone after their mother was taken away for sterilization.
"The puppies were healthy, immunized, dewormed and well-fed. They used to remain inside the vacant plot itself. Four of their siblings who survived have been shifted to a local shelter till their mother returns after sterilization," the post added.
The Delhi Police has registered an FIR in the matter on a complaint from a community dog feeder Vanessa Alphonso who had found their bodies on Wednesday morning, they said.
"The puppies were vulnerable as their mother was taken away by MCD officials for sterilisation surgery on Tuesday morning. Six puppies were living on a vacant land around the local elementary school.
On Tuesday evening we could not spot two of them. We thought they could be playing around," Alphonso said. The next morning, when she went to feed the puppies, she noticed something red lying in the bushes which was the carcass of a puppy. The carcass of another puppy was hanging from a noose on a tree, she said as she broke down while narrating the grotesque discovery. She alerted the police, who rushed to the scene and took the carcasses for autopsy. According to the complainant, the crime was discovered when the feeders had gone in search of the dogs.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Dwarka) Harsha Vardhan said, a complaint was received on Wednesday regarding killing of stray dogs in a secluded park in Dwarka Sector-9.
"A case under Indian Penal Code section 429 (mischief by killing or maiming animal) was registered on Wednesday at Dwarka South police station. The post-mortem of the carcasses was conducted. Efforts are being made to identify and arrest the accused," Vardhan said. The shocker in Dwarka is the latest in a series of animal cruelty incidents reported in recent past.