Bengaluru: “How would you feel if you are tied round the clock with a leash which is just 1.5 feet long and there is no room to move around, minimal food, and no water to drink while a collar chokes your breath,” asks Vasanth, a 35-year-old dog lover.
He was allegedly assaulted and threatened by a gang of six men on Tuesday night after he tried to save three dogs from the clutches of a breeder.
It was a heart-wrenching for Vasanth, an application development programmer and a resident of Old Airport Road, to see the dogs being subjected to cruelty by the breeder. When he tried to rescue the dogs, which included a Labrador and a golden retriever, he was allegedly beaten black and blue by the six-man gang.
They dragged him out of his apartment, punched in his face, jaws and stomach leaving him badly injured.
The incident occurred around 11 pm on Tuesday when the breeder, Manjunath, a resident of the same apartment, barged into Vasanth’s flat, dragged him down the flight of stairs and assaulted him.
“It was on Diwali night when I found the dogs chained to our apartment gates, while the kids were bursting loud firecrackers right next to them. Street dogs can run and hide, but these dogs could not as they were tied.
You could see that they were petrified. I contacted Amala Suman, who is a dog lover, and she said that she would come to the spot with one of her friends and assess the situation.
She arrived on Tuesday night and questioned Manjunath. He walked into my apartment around 11 pm, dragged me down, and started assaulting me along with his cronies, leaving me with a swollen eye, swollen jaw, back pain among others,” he said.
“The assailants didn’t stop there. They threatened to kill me and cut me into pieces, if I complained again. It was only because of the intervention of my friends Monish and Sayantika Ghosh that I was saved,” he said.
When Vasanth approached the Old Airport police station, the police officers on duty berated him for not knowing Kannada. “After a long argument and with the help of a friend, I could finally lodge a complaint at 3.10 am,” he said.
“The dogs are tied to the gates round the clock. As they were ill-treated, I and one of my neighbours, Mr Aditya, used to give them water. I had told Manjunath several times that it was not how the dogs are treated, but he would not listen,” Vasanth said.
