Common Offences against Animals and Laws

Common Offences against Animals and Laws

Common offences against animals and laws is more or less obligatory for a veterinarian to be familiar with the laws for protection of animals, more so because of his training and profession which inculcate a spirit of sympathy and understanding towards our dumb companions, the domestic animals, who deserve all sympathy and kindness.

The common offences against animals are:

  1. Mischief
  2. Bestiality
  3. Cruelty
Common Offences against Animals and Laws
Fig.: Common Offences against Animals and Laws

1. Mischief

Mischief includes killing, poisoning or maiming an animal. Poisoning is the commonest method of mischievous killing. Abrus precatrius seed, arsenic, aconite root, snake venom, datura leaves, and seeds of yellow oleander are common poisons used in the mischievous killing of the animals.

  • Accidental poisoning may occur in animals by linseed or jowar consumption.
  • Mischief is punishable under sections 428 and 429 IPC.

Maiming

Maiming means making an animal permanently useless by the use of violence. This type of offence is also common and its aim is to harm the owner when his animal damages the crop or other property.

The common forms of hurting animals and rendering them useless are:

  • Fracture of bone
  • Cutting tendons of legs and neck
  • Injury to udder in milch animals
  • Tearing of the vagina or rectum by introducing sharp or blunt object
  • Punctured wounds, etc

2. Bestiality

Bestiality means carnal intercourse with man, woman or animal, against the order of nature.

This type of crime is quite frequently found in India due to the following reasons:

  • The common belief among illiterate people that intercourse with she-donkey is a remedy for gonorrhoea.
  • Excessive sexual desire with little opportunity for natural intercourse.
  • Young villagers who go out to graze cattle in fields far away from human eyes, are incited, owing to loneliness and the proximity of the animals, to commit this crime, People having some mental abnormalities.
  • The human male is generally the active agent and the passive agent a goat, donkey, mare, cow, or even hen.

Bestiality is punishable under Section 377 IPC. The offenders are usually caught red-handed.

Examination of animal for bestiality:

  • The vagina of the animal should be examined for evidence of injury and the suspect examined for marks of injuries caused by the kicks teeth or claws of the animal.
  • The surrounding hair of the animal should be examined for presence of human spermatozoa (it is very important to note whether the spermatozoa found are of the same animal or not and for this purpose the presence or absence of heat in the female animal is also a guide).
  • The presence of organisms of gonorrhoea in the vagina of the animal is a definite sign of bestiality.
  • The clothes of the suspect will smell of urine or faeces of the animal as after a sexual act animals have a habit of urinating.

3. Cruelty

Cruelty offence includes basting, overloading, using a diseased animal for work, starvation, “Phuka”, etc.

These acts are punishable under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.

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