By Debashrita Mazumder Oct 28, 2022
Agartala, Oct 28 (FD) The number of stray animals that roam the streets in Tripura may not be determined by a statistical file report in a government office but people are not unaware of the growing population of street animals. In an interview with the Secretary of Pawsome (Tripura’s first animal welfare organization) Wrighved Dutta, expressed his hopes for building Tripura’s first ever permanent shelter for homeless and injured animals.
He informed that the NGO currently runs a temporary shelter to treat injured street animals but they are actively pursuing the idea to build a permanent animal shelter with the hope of receiving some assistance from the state government. He said that there are many homeless, injured animals that are permanently paralyzed and that shelter will be a home to those helpless, mute beings.
He also expressed his concern how people and administration in India are hardly bothered about the welfare of animals. Hence, it is one of the NGOs objectives to bring the miserable state of these helpless animals to notice. He claims that Tripura will have its first animal shelter in the coming years and the organization will leave no stone unturned to achieve that dream.
Pawsome was started in 2015 with Debanjana Gupta as the president. The organization started as a volunteer group of 4-5 friends to become an organization with more than 40 members in a span of 7 years.
Presently, the organization is involved in various activities such as feeding hungry animals, rescuing street animals, providing medical care through trained veterinarian doctors to injured animals, finding adopters and conducting paperwork for the adoption of orphan animals, conducting anti rabies vaccination drives and sterilization drives to control the population of stray dogs.
Rigved said,” Animals have the right to live. But homeless animals are tortured, neglected and people see them as worthless. But we differ from it. So our motive is to work for those animals, find a proper shelter, take care, and feed them as there is nobody to help them.”
He recounted the NGO’s tireless struggle in eradicating dog meat smuggling to neighboring NE states.
The organization is also involved in spreading awareness and educating common people about animals and common ignorance in people’s behavior while dealing with animals. They organize many awareness campaigns around the state and neighboring states. Rigved informed that Pawsome organized the biggest animal sensitization program in North East collaborating with a US based organization Human Society International (HSI) in 2019 which aimed to aware the police officials, AMC workers, forest department, animal resource development department etc of animal laws, ways to protect animals, ways to handle cases of animal cruelty. In 2022 Pawsome organized awareness programs in many schools across Agartala with the help of Animal Resource Development Department (ARDD) where they taught students about laws and rights of animals. Besides these, they organize street rallies and campaigns to educate common people about the importance of animal welfare. He said that the times have changed since their genesis in 2015. People are now empathetic and come forward to help by feeding stray dogs on a regular basis, and reporting the organization if they witness any situation that requires help.
The Pawsome has been successfully working for years and their achievements did not remain completely unnoticed. The organization has been awarded as the best animal welfare organization in the North East by Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations (FIAPO). They were also awarded by the Animal Welfare Board of India for their wonderful work towards the homeless animals.
The secretary of the organization shared the many obstacles that the NGO faced and is still facing on a daily basis. He said the Pawsome is a self-run organization funded by the wallets of the volunteers and common people who are kind enough to donate to the cause. But the organization does not receive any sort of aid from the government. Every day the organization rescues about 20 to 22 street animals and therefore the amount of medication and resources curry big bills and therefore monetary crisis is an issue. He repeatedly focused on their project of building a permanent shelter for animals. He said that the organization has tried time and again to reach the old government as well as the present government, but they are yet to receive a strong assurance or any positive response. Rigved said,” The Supreme Court has told that every district must have an animal shelter but Tripura is yet to follow through with that.” Aside from these major problems, there are few minor issues like lack of volunteers, resources etc.
In the context of the 8 month old infant killed by an attack of stray dogs in NOIDA recently Rigved said, “Everybody has the right to live, whether it is a street dog or an 8 month human child. The problem lies in a different path. People are unaware. Firstly, I have seen many people walking on the road with their child and a dog passing them, their first instinct is to remove their child from that scene. This kind of behavior instills fear in the young minds and they run every time they come across a dog. As dogs are dumb animals, they chase any running or moving object. So humans have to understand this. Secondly, the number of cases where dogs are actually biting are very less but they are being highlighted. However the cases of animal cruelty are not reported. Imagine a scenario where the two dogs in my locality were cared for, they would have become human friendly but we treat them cruelly as a result the dogs also develop a fear and aggression for human beings. This is not only a fault of common people but the fault lies upon the administration as well. The administration is doing nothing to control the overpopulation of stray dogs. The Supreme Court also said that the humane way to control stray dog population is not to kill them but to sterilize them. The government is doing nothing to vaccinate the stray dogs. So it is wrong to blame only the stray dogs. As we are the Supreme Being, it is our duty to care for those animals.”
He further added, “There are many reports of Pitbulls, Rottweilers and pet dogs being aggressive towards humans, kids to be specific. I completely blame those pet owners in these cases because nowadays people with zero knowledge in pet keeping buy these dogs to brag and walk proudly with such muscular dogs on the road. They are training or socializing these dogs. I won’t say these dogs are aggressive but they are definitely from the dominant breed. So with lack of training and socializing they turn aggressive and these attack cases happen as a result. So I blame the owners and not the pet dogs. “