Inspection reveals poor maintenance of animals at Blue Cross shelter
A youth was hacked to death by a fivemember gang in Thirumudivakkam near Kundrathur on Wednesday. The police identified the victim as Nishanth, 23, an autorickshaw driver from Kambar Street in the locality. On Wednesday night, when he was outside playing games on his phone, the gang attacked him with knives and fled after killing him, the police said. Upon receiving an alert, the Kundrathur police reached the spot and recovered the body. They said he had been murdered due to previous enmity. Special teams were formed to trace the suspects.
An inspection by the State Animal Welfare Board at Blue Cross India, Chennai, on Thursday revealed a distressing lack of care and maintenance of animals in the shelter.
Dead dogs were found dumped in a sack and were kept in the same room as ones under treatment. The treatment section had neither any records nor tags, as per the Board.
The inspection follows a communication received from the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) dated February 23 on complaints against Blue Cross that the organisation picks up as many as 100 puppies and animals in distress each day.
“Even dead dogs are an income as their reproductive organs can be taken out to claim animal birth control programme money from the Greater Chennai Corporation,” the AWBI letter to the Corporation stated.
During the inspection, State
Animal Welfare Board officials noticed rats in the kennels of sick puppies, stale fermented milk and dal provided as feed to puppies, and dozens of dead dogs without any records. Further, sick kittens in need of treatment did not have any tags. At the time of inspection from 9 a.m. to 1.30 p.m., no doctor was said to have treated sick puppies. The Blue Cross only had four doctors on duty on Thursday for 500 animals, the Board noted.
“Crematorium records indicated roughly 4550 deaths a day on an average at the Blue Cross shelter. Euthanasia records shown to us today account for roughly 20 dogs. Cats were not shown,” the Board said in a message to the media.
Vinod Kumar, general manager at Blue Cross, said information on every animal brought in was stored digitally. However, he said, the records may not be updated regularly in the software due to the high volume of animals handled. He further said that tags were given only to those animals that underwent treatment.