Eleven more dogs that were ill and malnourished were taken out of the shelter maintained by IIT-Madras on its campus on Thursday by few animal rights activists.
Last Friday, three dogs were similarly moved out of the campus for better care and treatment. Activists said that 14 dogs in total have been taken out as per directions of the Madras High Court in an ongoing public interest litigation regarding the handling of community dogs by IIT Madras administration. The court had said that the sick dogs could be moved out for better care.
The activists, who moved the dogs, said that many were anaemic, malnourished while some had injuries and other health issues.
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Around two weeks ago, Health Minister Ma. Subramanian had inspected the shelter. Activists have been demanding that the dogs in the shelter be set free by pointing out to the high mortality.
IIT Madras administration had acknowledged during the inspection by the Minister that 56 out of the 188 dogs kept in the shelter had died in the past one year.
Meanwhile, Citizens for Animal Rights, a Delhi-based organisation that was one of the petitioners in a litigation in Supreme Court concerning community dogs, wrote to IIT Madras Registrar, urging that the dogs be released from the shelter.
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Rishi Dev, director of the organisation, said the confinement and treatment of these dogs went against the judgment of the Supreme Court. “There is precedence where Supreme Court took cognisance of such violations. We have told the IIT Madras Registrar that we will be initiating contempt proceedings if it did not take action as per the Supreme court judgment,” he said.