Carcasses of six dogs found on Cooum bank; poisoning suspected
CHENNAI : Around 20 dogs at Mackey’s garden on Greams Road have allegedly been poisoned, according to locals. Carcasses of at least six dogs were found along the banks of Cooum on Friday.
Residents said many of these dogs were left behind by the 389 families who were evicted from the settlement in November last year and resettled to Perumbakkam. The dogs are now being taken care of largely by the community as a whole.
Srividya (name changed), one among those resettled to Perumbakkam, visits the area at least once a week to feed the dogs she had when she lived there, along with a few others who were left behind by their families. On Wednesday night, she found one of her dogs foaming at the mouth and soon found several others in the locality, dead. “With the help of other residents here, we finally managed to inform an animal rights activist today who agreed to take up the case,” she said. Residents managed to save two dogs by inducing vomit through home remedies, they said.
Sai Vignesh M, an animal rescuer and founder of Almighty Adoption Center, who was at the spot on Friday said that the dogs may have been poisoned. “The carcasses have to be sent for post-mortem. We will follow the investigation throughout,” he said. Residents suspect a local politician who was last seen feeding the dogs with meat a few hours before they were found dead. They said he often complained that the dogs were a threat to the goats he reared in his house. A complaint has been filed with Thousand Lights police station.
“A case has been registered and we are conducting inquiries with the residents in the locality. There is no CCTV footage available,” said a police officer. On October 19, Pazhavanthangal police arrested a man for allegedly stabbing a dog to death at Nanganallur.