'Obhoyaronno', a Bangladeshi animal welfare society, offered TK 100,000 for information leading to the identification and possible arrest of the individual for cruelty towards animals.

The organisation has announced on its Facebook page that anyone with information can call Obhoyaronno at 01718643497 or email atobhoyaronno@yahoo.com. This is the first such bounty announced to find an animal killer in Bangladesh.

The place of the incident could not be identified from the video as it shows just a few bystanders and some shops in the locality. The video may be disturbing to some viewers.

Obhoyaronno managed to obtain the first police arrest on charges of cruelty towards animals in Dhaka in July last year. A trial is under way.

The new video, a screengrab of which was uploaded by the organisation on its Facebook page on Sept 5, shows a man starting to beat a sleeping dog to death. The dog screamed after the first hit and was seen struggling to get up and run away. The man brought another stick after the first one was broken, and kept thrashing the dog to ensure its death.

“This is a part of our awareness raising campaign to stop cruelty towards animals,” Nadia Choudhury, Head of Legal Affairs of the organization, told bdnews24.com on Saturday.

She said the organisation received many such complaints every day through email or phone calls.

Animal cruelty, human violence related

The connection between animal cruelty and human violence is well documented, Rubaiya Ahmad, who leads Obhoyaronno, wrote in her Facebook post when she shared the video.

“A sleeping dog poses no threat to anyone. It’s shameful that this man's sole intent was to torture and kill the dog. He apparently finds pleasure in killing an animal with such brutality”.

Studies show a correlation between animal cruelty and the manner of other crimes - from narcotics and firearms violence to battery and sexual assault, she added.

Killing stray dogs is common in Bangladesh. Like many other countries, Bangladesh once promoted the killing of dogs to control the canine population as part of its efforts to control disease prevention such as rabies.

But later it switched to modern methods such as sterilization, following campaigns and availability of international funds.

Archaic law

Obhoyaronno receives information about animal cruelty every day. Even on Saturday it came to know that dogs were being beaten to death in Motijheel. A group protested the killing on the spot. But it could not identify the people behind the animal cruelty.

“Once we can identify the person and the place of the crime, we can file a case,” Choudhury, said, adding, “We have law to fight that, though it is very old.”

The 1920 Act is mostly focused on farm animals, though with that, the lawyer said, all animal cruelty could be tried. But the penalty is only Tk 2OO or six months of jail. It is a bailable offence.

Choudhury said her organization was working with the Law Commission to amend and update the law.

She is hopeful of bringing the dog killer in the video to justice. “We believe people will come forward with information about the killer.”