Sisters abused for feeding dogs in Kolkata

Tamaghna Banerjee | TNN | Updated: Apr 6, 2020, 09:37 IST

Image used for Representative purposes

KOLKATA: A young animal lover and his family were allegedly threatened by neighbours and the local councillor for feeding stray dogs in a Bijoygarh lane on Saturday night. When she reached out to cops, the officers allegedly asked her to not to push the matter and feed the dogs farther away from the locality.
According to Priyanka Saha, an advocate, she and her sister were feeding street dogs in the evening. But around 8.30pm, when they reached the place near the office of Ward 96 councillor Debabrata Majumdar. "The locals abused us for feeding the strays and asked us to leave the area immediately. They said we were littering the area and were feeding dogs in front of their homes," Saha said. "However, we were nowhere near their homes and were feeding the dogs on plates made of newspaper," she claimed.
When Saha and her sister refused to leave, the locals called the councillor and allegedly threatened they will "teach them a lesson". "When the councillor reached the area even he began abusing us and asked us to show a permit to feed dogs in that locality. As the altercation continued, the locals, in his presence, dumped a bucketful of food in a nearby water body and threatened us to leave the area," said Saha, who later wrote about the incident on Facebook where her friends tagged Kolkata Police. She also sent a mail to BJP MP Maneka Gandhi's office.
Responding to the allegations, Majumdar said: "I was told that the women were feeding dogs in front of the gates of locals and were misbehaving with elderly persons in the area. I was also informed that hundreds of people had come out to protest, violating the lockdown protocol. So I had to rush in and ensure the women were gone before the situation went out of control. I even had to call cops," he said.
A cop said they didn't receive any official complaint regarding the incident.