A senior police inspector in Mumbai, Sudhir Kudalkar, has become an unexpected saviour for stray animals, working with a group called Pure Animal Lovers to defend animals. Kudalkar and a team of lawyers help activists and policemen understand the legalities of animal rights issues and register cases. The team has been successful in registering offences and making arrests in cases that would have been dismissed elsewhere. Kudalkar’s compassion towards animals has earned him the title of ‘Hero to Animals’ from PETA.
In a city that witnesses innumerable conflicts over the feeding of stray animals, and where local feeders are often at the receiving end of abuse and violence, voiceless animals have found an unexpected saviour: a senior police inspector called Sudhir Kudalkar. Kudalkar, along with a band of lawyers that he collected to assist a four-year-old group called Pure Animal Lovers (PAL), has been putting his best foot forward in defence of animals for almost a year now.
Currently in charge of MHB Colony Police Station in Borivali West, Kudalkar is famed for his compassion towards animals. Hordes of dogs and cats assemble at his police station every day to eat the food that the officer personally serves them; they walk around freely in the police station premises and even clamber on to the tables. Last year, PETA declared Kudalkar a ‘Hero to Animals’ after he rescued a 120-year-old turtle who was stuck in a drain. PAL does a lot of rescue and rehabilitation work, including placing distressed animals in their forever homes.
Being a staunch animal lover, Kudalkar was always saddened to hear animal rights activists and feeders speak about cases not being taken seriously by the police. Over his 28 years of police service, he has come across many disputes in housing societies between animal lovers and their opponents. It was after hearing their collective experiences that he got 19 lawyers from across the city last year to form the PAL legal team. The lawyers help the activists and policemen understand the legalities of the issues and register cases or resolve the issues.
In this very month, the MHB police have registered offences and made arrests in cases that would have been dismissed at most places. On October 2, Kudalkar led his team to register an offence against six people, including two BMC workers, who were involved in displacing six puppies in Mandapesh Dham society.
“Displacing an animal from a place it sees as home as well as abandoning it at a place where it is likely to die of starvation are both offences as per the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act,” said Kudalkar. “This is probably one of the first cases in the city in which civic workers were not just booked but also arrested.”
On October 15, a 25-year-old local feeder was molested and verbally abused when she was out feeding dogs at around 11 pm. When her family confronted the man, he assaulted them with a bamboo stick before threatening to rape the woman. The man was found by the MHB police, despite not knowing his identity, within two days of the incident. He was arrested for molestation, voluntarily causing hurt with dangerous weapons and criminal intimidation.
Preeti Salaskar, a lawyer on the PAL legal team, said that in many cases animal rights activists themselves were not aware of the laws governing animal abuse. “Sometimes the lower-rung policemen handling the issues are not very sensitive to these cases,” she said. “The presence of a lawyer helps both parties in resolving the issue quicker.”
Madhu Chanda, a local feeder from Malad East, praised the PAL team’s work effusively. “Never before have we seen such strict action against those offending local feeders or harming stray animals despite laws being in place,” she said. “Previously, when feeders approached the police with instances of violence and abuse, they would not even register a complaint.” Chanda recalled that when her husband was assaulted in one such instance, the police told her not to bring such trifling matters to them and to make peace with the perpetrators.
Kudalkar handles issues adroitly even without a formal complaint. Take the case of Pooja Lad (34) from Borivali who has been feeding strays since childhood. A few years ago, a woman who moved into her building began objecting to the presence of the dogs and even hitting them. “Once, she threatened to break the limbs of animals who entered the building,” said Lad. “We had an altercation, after which she started abusing me and even my aged parents. When she yelled at my mother, who has a cardiac ailment, I finally decided to approach the police.”
Lad was not too hopeful, having heard policeman say, “Why are you bothering another person for a mere dog?” However, when Kudalkar heard of her situation, he called the neighbour to the police station for counselling. “He also told me to register a non-cognisable offence (NC) against her and keep doing it each time she threatened or abused me,” said Lad. “He also warned her in front of me that he would not hesitate to turn my complaint into an FIR after a certain number of NCs were filed.”
Source: Hindustan Times
