Engineering student throwing puppy off terrace shows we are more ruthless than animals

In yet another story of barbarity against animals, a student of a reputed engineering college at Vellore in Tamil Nadu, threw a month-old puppy off a terrace. The puppy died on the spot.

Twenty-one-year-old Vishesh Iyengar, a mechanical engineering student, allegedly committed the killing on October 24. However, this is not the first time Vishesh has shown cruelty to animals. Some time back, Vishesh threw another puppy off the terrace killing it too.

In a worrying trend, such cases of violence perpetrated on dogs are being reported on a regular basis, which begs the question about why our behaviour to them is so beastly.

In a Facebook post, animal welfare worker Shravan Krishnan reproduced the message he received from the caretakers of the dead puppy.

"We took in a one-month-old puppy who was attacked by other big street dogs, badly bruised. We got him vaccinated, fed him daily and were so thankful for his presence in our lives. He was a small bundle of love and in no time everyone in the house got attached to him," the message read.

An accompanying video in his Facebook post shows some people inspecting the fallen puppy and then burying it on ascertaining it to be dead.

To add to the horror of what people are doing to dogs is the fact that they want the world to take note of it. After committing crimes against animals, people are sadly sharing photos, WhatsApp messages and videos to claim the acts are a trend that can only euphemistically be defined as perverse.

Vishesh had boastfully shared a message on WhatsApp group after killing the first puppy. "1 down, 1 more to go, doggy tales". The message only going on to show that he had planned well to kill the other puppy too.

When asked by members of the group about the incident, Vishesh said, "They peed on my clothes dude."

But some go on to kill animals even without such silly and obviously unjustifiable reasons.

In July this year, a man in Noida stood on a dog, pressing its mouth and neck for over half-an-hour. The man moved only when the dog breathed its last.

Later in August, a chilling CCTV footage emerged, showing a group of men savagely pummelling a stray dog to death with bricks in a south Delhi alley and then taking the carcass with them.

In March 2016, a man allegedly stabbed three stray dogs to death and a puppy outside the Green Park Metro station. CCTV footage accessed from the area showed, the attack was sudden and wasn't preceded with the dogs barking at the man or attacking him, as is the case in some attacks.

In August 2016, two medical students, threw a dog off the rooftop of a three-storey building and filmed the gruesome incident.

It is difficult to point a finger at just why people are cruel to animals. This is a matter of deep psychological analysis perhaps. But what surely needs to be fixed is the punishment for such crimes.

Currently, according to The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, you can get away with being cruel to most animals by paying a fine of anything between Rs 10 and Rs 50 in India. For repeat offenders, the penalty may go up to anything between Rs 25 and Rs 100. You could also be thrown in jail for three months. But that's about it.

There is no quick-fix solution to the problem. A multi-pronged approach is needed to deal with. While we identify the triggers that set off of the cruelty, we also need to work on stricter laws to deal with the perpetrators.

Also read: Bhopal student gang rape is no 'filmy story'. It is a horrifying testament to our times