animal rights activists

Grant Road

stray dogs

(Left) The accused Abbas Hatimbhai Hotelwala; (right) The kitten that survived

A Life For Animals Foundation

ByandThree out of four die; drug store owner arrested afterfile complaint.A 71-year-olddrug store owner was arrested on Wednesday after he allegedly flung four kittens out of the window of his third floor apartment, killing three of them.A paan seller, who runs a shop on the ground floor of a building across the road from the drug store owner’s house, spotted him chucking the kittens and alerted animal rights activists, who filed a police complaint.The accused has been identified as Abbas Hatimbhai Hotelwala, resident of Habib House building at Khetwadi.Stray cats and dogs are a perennial flashpoint in Mumbai between animal lovers and those who see them as a nuisance. In December last year, 64-year-old Shivam Panchal, a resident of Tetonia building in Thane was arrested for allegedly killing his neighbour’s cat by throwing it from the balcony of his 16th floor flat.A 32-year old woman, who fedin Vikhroli, was abused by an auto driver on September 25, last year. A case was registered at the Vikhroli police station and the accused was arrested. In April, this year, the same woman was attacked and molested by three men at a construction site, where she was feeding dogs.In October 2017, two sisters were beaten up by members of their housing society in Dindoshi for feeding stray dogs. The police arrested three residents for molesting and assaulting the women. More recently, two members of a housing society in Kandivali were fined Rs 3.5 lakh by their housing society -- Nisarg Heaven Co-operative Housing Society -- for feeding stray dogs.Animal rights activist Sonali Waghmare, who rushed to the spot after receiving a call from a local activist who was alerted by the paan seller Abrar Bagwan, said she found three dead kittens and one badly hurt outside Habib House. She first attended to the injured kitten and then filed a police complaint against Hotelwala. Waghmare is associated with Thane-basedHotelwala has been booked under section 429 (killing or maiming an animal) of the Indian Penal Code and section 11-a (treating animals cruelly) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.A police officer, who did not wish to be identified, said Abrar first saw one kitten plunge from Habib House. “As he got out of his shop to see what was happening, three more fell one after the other,” the officer said.Waghmare said the injured kitten has been shifted to a clinic for treatment and will be taken care of by her organisation. “The dead kittens have been taken to the animal hospital in Parel, where they will be buried. They were stray cats. There is no sign of their mother yet,” she said.The police officer quoted above said Hotelwala has denied throwing the kittens out. “But since we have an eyewitness, we have arrested him,” he said.