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Week after assault, stray animal catchers resume drive in Patiala
A week after a team of stray animal catchers were assaulted, the Patiala municipal corporation (MC) has resumed the drive on city roads.
A week after a team of stray animal catchers were assaulted, the Patiala municipal corporation (MC) has resumed the drive on city roads.
The drive remained suspended after senior deputy mayor, Yoginder Singh Yogi, who has been assigned the task to rescue stray cattle, and his team were attacked by miscreants on September 30.
Yogi and two of his team members had received minor injuries in the attack.
However, following the incident, senior officials of Patiala MC met deputy commissioner (DC) Kumar Amit and senior superintendent of police (SSP) Mandeep Singh Sidhu to ensure safety of the MC team.
Jai Inder Kaur, daughter of Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh also held a meeting with the officials over the issue.
“We have resumed work and have started rescuing stray animals from roads. More than 15 bulls and cows were caught and sent to cowsheds on Saturday,” said the senior deputy mayor.
He added that the civic body has already written to police authorities to provide a team of cops while the animal catchers’ team does its work.
Yogi said that stray cattle rescue operation is being carried out in a systematic manner, but people, who have kept cows as pets, are causing much convenience.
“Many people, who are breeding cows, let their animals loose for grazing before chaining and milking them again. We have rescued more than 100 such cows in the past one month. Owners of these animals have requested us to release their cattle. However, we have refused to do so,” Yogi said.
Meanwhile, Patiala mayor Sanjeev Sharma Bittu said that the municipal corporation is keeping a record of the rescued cattle so that the MC can pay for them from the cow cess collected from financial heads.
“Any such assault is not going to slow down civic body’s pace in rescuing stray cattle that has turned into main reason behind road accidents and cause lot of problems to the commuters,” the mayor said.
MC already facing the heat
As many as five deaths caused due to stray cattle between July and August this year have resulted in MC facing much heat. Stray cattle can be seen roaming freely on national and state highways across district and highly populated interiors parts of Patiala (urban) and other link roads.
Officials of the Patiala MC and the district administration are already on the line of fire of families of two victims who had died in road accidents caused by stray animals.
The family of 40-year-old Amrik Singh, who had died after he was attacked by a stray bull on July 17, had approached the permanent lok adalat (public utility services), to seek compensation worth ₹60 lakh for their loss.
In another case, the family of 34-year-old Mandeep Singh, who had died in a road accident caused due to stray cattle is seeking a compensation of ₹2 crore.
