Now, more than ever in Bangalore, the impunity with which drivers in expensive cars seem to playing some sort of murder-for-fun game with street dogs, the number of dog-hit-and-run cases is steeply rising.
We – all of us in the streetie community – need to make ourselves familiar with aspects of the law and statutes on animals so that we can bring pressure to bear on the police, legislature and judiciary. The punishment has to match the crime.
Hospital costs for injured animals is not cheap… and we who care for animals are spending huge amounts of money from our pockets to pay for the barbaric acts of a few.
Today I talk to Alwyn Sebastian, is possibly Bangalore’s most famous animal rights lawyer, young as he is.
It wasn’t that he started out wanting to study animal rights law… it wasn’t even a ‘thing’ then.
Slowly but surely, he found himself volunteering here and there with the number of cases of abuse and neglect on the rise. So then he decided he would get a Post Graduate Diploma in animal protection laws.
He explains the gradual change in animal rights in India over the years. From laws that only related to animals as people’s property, it’s now evolving to recognize animals as sentient beings, capable of feelings.
What’s more as human beings continue to encroach on their territory, we have a duty under Indian law to protect them.