A Facebook video of a woman claiming that she, her daughter, their pet are under threat of being publicly assaulted by a mob has recently gone viral.
A resident of Crossing Republik society in Dehli NCR’s Ghaziabad area, Mita Roy, who lives with her 25-year-old daughter and their dog has alleged in a FB live video posted on 21st June, that she and her family had to leave their Ghaziabad home after a mob threatened them and tried to assault them for feeding the dogs of the locality.
In a 22-minute long video, a grief-stricken Mita claims that due to the care and food she provided to the stray dogs, she has been banished from the locality. Her video also pointed fingers at the local police for not providing protection and safety to her family.
Mita, a volunteer at Sarvhit Seva Trust NGO which carries out sterilization and vaccination of street dogs, alleges that she has been facing ostracisation from the residents for about six years and fears for her daughter’s safety from the mob. “They want to make this an RWA election agenda and intend to throw out all the dogs by claiming that they bite the residents,” she said.
The inhabitants were allegedly fed up with the dogs in the society, who had bitten a resident a few months ago and wanted all of them to be evicted.
“The mob tried to thrash Mita and her daughter as the dogs that were fed by her went on to bite some residents after which the RWA took note of the issue and were against her for taking care of these dogs and even decided to evict them. They even got lathis to drive them out,” claimed Anurag Sharma, a fellow animal lover and volunteer at Sarvhit Seva Trust.
Mita also alleged that one of her guests, her husband and son Akshay were brutally thrashed by the group while they were on their way to meet her. While Mita claimed that an FIR has been filed at the Vijay Nagar Police Station, but officials denied that any such complaint had been filed when approached by InUth.
Mita’s friend, Medhavi Mishra posted a screenshot of the Whatsapp chat between the RWA society group members on Facebook where the members can be seen using foul language to describe animal activists.
However, residents of the society say that all they want is to ensure safety from stray dogs.
There have been alot of instances in the past few months where our kids and elderly parents have been the victims of stray dogs inside the society and they are proving to be a huge threat to our safety and well being”, said Neeraj Saini , a resident of Tower 9 of the colony.
“We want a separate feeding ground for the dogs away from the residential area so that everyone can reside peacefully but Mita is unnecessarily creating a huge scene out of it”, he added.
Prahlad Kumar, another resident, defended Saini’s stand and stressed on the importance of having a separate feeding ground for dogs. “This isn’t a bungalow where one can feed animals wherever they wish to,” he said.
He also alleged that in the candle march they held against Mita on 18th, the boy(Akshay) tried to harrass women in the march and his mother(Gupreet) and her husband were drunk on the night of the incident.
When contacted by InUth, Mita seemed to be in a state of shock and was barely able to articulate her thoughts.
“A counter FIR has also been filed by the RWA members and residents of the colony alleging that one of Mita’s guests tried to misbehave with the women in the mob due to which they thrashed them which are plain lies to mislead the police,” added Anurag.
(Written by Arnabjit Sur)
