Last survivor of Burari home, Tommy, 6, dies of heart failure
The pet dog of the family whose 11 members were found dead at their residence in north Delhi’s Burari on July 1 in what appeared to be a case of mass suicide, died of a heart attack at his newfound home in Noida on Sunday.
Tommy, the only survivor in the house, was chained on the terrace and suffering from high fever when the police found him after discovering the 11 bodies. It was not clear who had tied him. He was later said to have been convalescing at Noida’s House of Stray Animals, where he was taken shortly after being rescued.
Noida-based animal activist Sanjay Mohapatra had adopted Tommy, 6, an IndianPitbull mix breed. Mohapatra said Tommy was aggressive and ferocious when an animal rescue team approached him on July 1. It took the team 90 minutes to muzzle the dog and put him in an ambulance.
“Initially, Tommy was depressed… He refused food for the first two days. But his condition improved over the next few days. He resumed eating and was acting friendly. I started taking him on morning and evening walks…,” he said.
“Tommy seemed fit and fine until Sunday evening. He had his meals and went for a walk at 2pm. After I took him for a walk in the evening, and brought him home by 6pm, he suffered heart failure and collapsed all of a sudden,’’ said Mohapatra. “We took help of the veterinary doctor at our shelter and tried our best to revive him but failed.”
Tommy weighed 35kg, which veterinarians and animal experts consider healthy. He had undergone blood tests and his reports were fine.
“It is possible that the dog might have had a history of medical issues and his owners did not know about it. We find such cases in animals of mix breeds. The dog was brought in after the tragedy and required love and attention. It is possible he didn’t adjust to the new environment and this took a toll on his health,” said Geeta Seshamani, vice president, Friendicoes.
Dr Santosh Kumar, the in-house veterinarian with House of Stray Animals, said: “We ran two blood tests on Tommy on July 2 and July 10. In his last report, his blood count was normal,but his platelet count was a little less but above the danger level.”
Prashant Singh Chundawat, a grandson of Narayan Devi, the oldest Burari family member, had recently e-mailed Mohapatra, thanking him “for adopting and taking care of our only remaining family member, Tommy’’.
“We live in Kota (Rajasthan) and it is very difficult for us to get him here as he is not familiar with us and is very aggressive,” he had written.
Noida-based veterinarian Dr Diwakar Mishra said postmortem would help understand causes of Tommy’s sudden heart failure. “However, we have usually seen that overweight dogs tend to suffer from heart failure.”
Mohapatra said he has informed a relative of the family and the Delhi Police regarding the dog’s demise.
The eleven members of the Burari family were found dead on the morning of July 1, most of them hanging from the ceiling of their house, gagged and blindfolded. Their hands were tied behind the back, police had said. A statement from them had said that handwritten notes were found in the house “which point towards observance of some definite spiritual/mystical practices by the whole family”.
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