SSP’s guard shoots dead champion Labrador in DHA

Karachi
A uniformed policeman stationed outside the DHA residence of Senior Superintendent Police (SSP) Fida Hussain shot dead on Sunday a family's pet dog for barking too much at the SSP’s pet peacock.
The three-year-old Labrador, Milli, was out for a walk with her owner, 71-year-old Aley Abid, who lives just down the lane from the SSP. The dog was on a leash and, though she was barking at the peacock, posed no threat to the guard when he opened fire at her. The bullet whizzed past Abid who stood at a distance of a few inches from the dog when the guard fired his weapon.
Shaken by the incident, Abid was still trying to cope up with the sheer brutality of the incident and the audacity of the guard, said his son, Jaffer Raza, while speaking to The News. Raza, who reached minutes after, said he was left astounded by the guard’s display of self-assurance.
"Jo karna hai wo karlay! (Do whatever you can about this!) was what he said to us," narrated Raza.
A lawyer by profession, he expressed disappointment over the fact that there was no law under which one could report such incidents. Citing the 1890 Cruelty to Animal Act introduced by the British, he stated that the Act could do no good as it did not fall under the ambit of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), and neither could the offense be acknowledged under Section 429 of the PPC, as the law was limited to offences against ox, bulls, cattle and the like.
Raza said the family would demand that the guard be immediately suspended from duty and called for such incidents to be considered an offense under the PPC. He clearly stated that the family would not accept any apologies.
He called for SSP Hussain to calculate the amount of compensation and give it to any of the organisations working for animal welfare.
The incident created a furore on social media which did not go unnoticed by influential law makers, including Senator Sherry Rehman who, in a tweet, relayed her concern over the incident and vowed to take it up with the higher authorities.
As for SSP Hussain, several attempts by The News for an official version went unanswered.
Many may have found out about Milli after the incident, but the champion Labrador was no alien to the city’s pet world, having recently earned a gold medal in the pure-bred category at the Kennel Club of Pakistan's annual show.