Vasai housing society

Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act

Animal Welfare Board of India

CCTV footage

pelting stones

Three booked; animal rights activists reunite the one-month-olds with their mother.Six one-month-old puppies were taken away from their mother and thrown into a ditch after some members of acomplained of them being very noisy. The two members and the watchman, who took the puppies away, have been booked under theAs per the complaint of animal rights activist Mitesh Jain, who is also an animal welfare officer appointed by the, the local feeder Vanessa Vaz informed him about the puppies missing from Niharika Apartment in Stella, Vasai West on Wednesday afternoon. Vaz said she found the young ones missing the previous night when she went to feed them.Jain said after being informed, he went to the building along with activist and advocate Geeta Saha to look for the puppies.“We checked theof the building from the previous night in which we could clearly see the watchman driving away the mother dog byat her. He then took the puppies away in the carriage of his bicycle. All this happened around 11pm on Wednesday,” said Jain.After viewing the footage, the activists questioned the watchman, Vinod Dhakal, about the incident. He confessed, saying that he had been asked to do this by society resident Pramod Cheriyoor Veedu and Krishna Yadav, who owns a shop in the same building.“The watchman also told us that he had left the puppies on a street a kilometre away from the building,” said Jain.For the next three hours, the activists looked for the puppies at the place shown by the watchman. “We found two of them taking shelter under a vehicle parked close by. The other four were nowhere to be seen. So, we went around the area asking the shopkeepers about the active feeders in the area. We came across a senior citizen Karuna Borkar who had found the puppies in a ditch on Thursday morning and taken them to a safe place,” said Jain.The puppies were reunited with their mother after a separation of around 18 hours. It was a lovely sight to see the puppies getting excited on seeing their mother, Jain said.An officer from Manikpur police station confirmed that a case was registered against the three accused under IPC section 428 (mischief by killing or maiming an animal) and the relevant section of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act on Thursday.