RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

A man who be­head­ed a dog in broad day­light on High Street, San Fer­nan­do, could face charges, ac­cord­ing to As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Wayne Mys­tar.

A video cap­tured by passers­by showed the man us­ing a knife to cut off the dog’s ears and head. The man then walked down the crowd­ed street, hold­ing the dog’s head in his hand. The in­ci­dent drew com­ments from by­standers, with some spec­u­lat­ing he in­tend­ed to sell the dog’s head.

Speak­ing to re­porters on Sun­day, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er Mys­tar, who over­sees the South, Cen­tral, and South West­ern Di­vi­sions, said the mat­ter was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

“That came to our at­ten­tion and we know cru­el­ty to an­i­mals is an of­fence. That mat­ter is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed and I am al­most cer­tain that jus­tice will be forth­com­ing,” Mys­tar said. He added, “We are ask­ing cit­i­zens to ex­er­cise care and con­trol. Just as we deal with oth­er laws, we say if peo­ple break the law, they will be put be­fore the court.” 

When asked about foot pa­trols and whether po­lice were alert­ed dur­ing the in­ci­dent, Mys­tar said, “The in­for­ma­tion came to our at­ten­tion, and we are treat­ing with it.”

Mean­while, An­i­mal rights ac­tivist Jow­elle De Souza, Pres­i­dent of the Give Our An­i­mals Love (GOAL) net­work, ex­pressed frus­tra­tion over the lack of ac­tion on an­i­mal cru­el­ty cas­es.

“Po­lice have not been treat­ing with re­ports of an­i­mal cru­el­ty. Re­cent­ly, be­cause we had so many peo­ple dump­ing an­i­mals, we wrote to the Cab­i­net and the Prime Min­is­ter, let­ting him know all promis­es made in nine years—noth­ing has ma­te­ri­alised,” De Souza said.

She not­ed that new laws were draft­ed un­der the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture but have not been pro­claimed. “We don’t have a prop­er spay and neuter pro­gramme. Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Kaz­im Ho­sein had put to­geth­er a team. We met with dif­fer­ent min­istries, but noth­ing ma­te­ri­alised. We es­tab­lished five sanc­tu­ar­ies—pri­vate and pub­lic. All of them are over­crowd­ed,” she said.

She list­ed sanc­tu­ar­ies in Princes Town, South Oropouche, Ch­agua­nas, Curepe, and San­ta Rosa, stat­ing that all are reg­is­tered NGOs strug­gling with lim­it­ed re­sources.

“Un­der the then Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, we went on raids and took an­i­mals out of bad sit­u­a­tions. It’s not that they haven’t seen it. Gary had a unit so that you could call and get help,” De Souza said. Com­ment­ing on the San Fer­nan­do be­head­ing she said, “Po­lice are say­ing they think they could charge but they should have done that al­ready. Too many times we are hear­ing of these in­ci­dents.”

De Souza re­called a vi­ral case from two years ago where two men hanged a dog in Em­bac­cadere. “The dog was hung, and noth­ing came of it. It’s not some­thing that we are ac­cus­tomed to. T&T is so bar­bar­ic. The Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple must come to­geth­er and stop that,” she said.

She called on the Gov­ern­ment and po­lice to act on ex­ist­ing an­i­mal pro­tec­tion laws. “We opened all those sanc­tu­ar­ies with­out a cent. I want po­lice to tell us when we can come and sen­si­tise them to the law. I want them to do their jobs,” De Souza said.

Re­flect­ing on her decades of ad­vo­ca­cy, she said, “Af­ter so many years of work­ing as an ac­tivist, over 30 years of re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing an­i­mals, sanc­tu­ar­ies and vet bills are phe­nom­e­nal. It’s hor­ri­ble to know our an­i­mals are still fac­ing cru­el­ty.”