Man dies of dog bite, family slaps murder case against dog, owner

RANCHI/JAMSHEDPUR: A man who allegedly lost his father to dog bite has filed a police complaint in Jharkhand’s steel city Jamshedpur, urging the authorities to register murder cases against a businessman and his pet dog. Despite repeated efforts to convince him that there cannot a case against an animal, the petitioner is unrelenting.

Seeing the situation going out of control, harried police officials sent the deceased’s body for postmortem examination. Police also pacified the complainant that they will take appropriate action once the autopsy reports declare the actual cause of death.

The incident took place on January 6 when the pet dog of Burmamines-based copper trader, Gautam Jaiswal, a Rottweiler, bit his neighbour, Vishnudeo Singh, a 64-year-old security guard at a private firm.

Though Singh was instantly administered anti-rabies injection and was doing fine after that, he abruptly died on January 10 in his house.

Singh’s family members and neighbours, who apparently had an old grudge with the copper trader, allegedly vandalised the copper trader’s house and godown. The frenzied mob then marched to the police station and pressurised officials to lodge murder cases against both the dog and its master.

The mob became silent only after the copper trader agreed to dole out `2 lakh as compensation to the family for the ‘death caused by his dog’.