ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide. Founded in 1992, ANIMAL PEOPLE has no alignment or affiliation with any other entity. |
This site built and maintained by: Greanville Associates Rev. 3.26.03 Copyright ANIMAL PEOPLE, INC. 1992--2003
 |
ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
The Watchdog monitors fundraising, spending, and political activity in the name of animal and habitat protection—both pro and con. His empty bowl stands for all the bowls left empty when some take more than they need. |
October 2007 Why did the Central Bureau of Investigation raid the Animal Welfare Board of India?
CHENNAI, MUMBAI, MYSORE, DELHI, THIRUVANATHAPURAM--One
of the noisiest and farthest-reaching scandals in the often controversial
47-year history of the Animal Welfare Board of India may prove to
be less about corruption and bribery, when the Central Bureau of
Investigation concludes months of digging, than about pursuit of
mostly symbolic tribute by some AWBI appointees, and redress of
injured pride by some who have been rebuked. Disputes over the allocation of grant money, partisan politics,
and enforcement of laws governing livestock transportation and slaughter
have become involved. Yet--from statements and copies of inside correspondence obtained
by ANIMAL PEOPLE--pursuit of public stature and vengeance for past
frustrations and humiliations appears to have most visibly motivated
the persons whose charges instigated CBI raids on several animal
welfare organizations, the homes of their officers, and the Animal
Welfare Board of India offices in Chennai. Some of the instigators--or persons who claim to be instigators--are
seething over having been berated or denounced by People for Animals
founder, former cabinet minister for animal welfare, member of Parliament,
and longtime Animal Welfare Board member Maneka Gandhi, who has
notoriously little patience with vanity and self-aggrandizement.
Yet none of the allegations investigated by the CBI directly involve
Maneka Gandhi, or any organization she heads. Some complainants have disputes with other ranking AWBI members,
who are not aligned with Maneka Gandhi. And the allegations forwarded
to the CBI appear to have been hurled not as a conspiracy so much
as a matter of complainants with a variety of only casually related
grievances suddenly perceiving a chance to pursue them. Along the way, some complainants hit each other. For every person
who joined in the attack, mostly through electronic media, several
others who have had public conflicts with Maneka Gandhi and other
targets of the CBI raids e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE to distance themselves
from the whole affair. Caught in the middle, with the membership of the Animal Welfare
Board and his own position due for reappointment, is Animal Welfare
Board president R.M. Kharb, a retired general who decades ago was
veterinarian to both Sonia Gandhi and Maneka Gandhi. Both married
sons of former prime minister Indira Gandhi. Sonia and Maneka Gandhi, each widowed long ago, were reputedly
never friends even when both lived in Indira Gandhi's household. Maneka Gandhi, a member of the Bharatija Janata Party, was the
dominant figure within the Animal Welfare Board while the BJP headed
the Parliamentary majority. Kharb was named to head the Animal Welfare Board after the UPA
displaced the BJP. Though the Animal Welfare Board is nominally
non-partisan, political patronage has often figured in the board
composition. Under Kharb, the Animal Welfare Board delegated more
responsibilities to UPA insiders, and reduced the prominence and
influence of the People for Animals network, widely perceived as
Maneka Gandhi's support base, although the many chapters function
almost completely autonomously. Some PfA chapters have alleged that
promised grants from the Animal Welfare Board have been delayed
by as much as two years, though ANIMAL PEOPLE found no consistent
pattern in a poll of about 20 PfA organizations. S.K. Mittal Among the UPA supporters whom Kharb most trusted was Mysore businessman
S.K. Mittal, a first-time Animal Welfare Board appointee with relatively
little background in animal welfare. Mittal was put in charge of
AWBI business in the states of Kerala and Karnataka. When the Supreme
Court of India asked the AWBI to inspect the slaughterhouses in
Kerala and submit a report, in response to a lawsuit brought by
vegetarian activist Laxmi Narain Modi, Mittal was delegated to do
the inspections. Mittal visited 15 slaughterhouses in just four days. "On the 5th of January 2007 he started his whirlwind inspection
tour with heavy fanfare, press meetings, and police escort,"
alleged veterinarian John "Jose" Yohanan, who complained
about Mittal's conduct to the Animal Welfare Board. "He claimed
that he was the 'Supreme Court Commission' and asked for government
guest houses, a government car, police guard and police escort.
Animal Husbandry Department and local officials were supposed to
be at his beck and call." Yohanan questioned whether Mittal actually did any serious inspecting,
given the distances covered on his itinerary, the amount of time
he spent in meetings and press conferences, and the many misspelled
or misidentified place names in Mittal's report. Yohanan further questioned whether Mittal visited several slaughterhouses
at all, claiming fellow veterinarians had not been able to confirm
his presence. "The Mittal Commission Report opens with a color photo of
the gentleman and a bombastic biography," Yohanan wrote. A
copy of the report forwarded by Mittal himself confirmed that the
lengthy bio included-- among other trivia--a list of prominent people
whom Mittal said he had shaken hands with. The two-part report offers checklists of concerns about slaughterhouses,
and brief descriptions of what Mittal saw. Ten times Mittal wrote, "Condition of slaughterhouse is very
poor, unhygenic & violating all the norms. No separate enclosures
for slaughtering. Waste management system is not proper. Destination
of disposal of carcasses is not known. Illegal slaughterhouses found
in the surroundings." Five times Mittal wrote, "Since there is no registered slaughterhouse,
illegal slaughtering flourishes. There was slaughtering of cattle
also and were found selling beef. The cattle were slaughtered just
in front of the stalls. Most of these stalls are in the heart of
the city & in residential areas. Very ugly scene & no action
initiated by the civic authorities." But the size and flamboyance of Mittal's entourage--whom he named
in an e-mail to ANIMAL PEOPLE--ensured that there were plenty of
witnesses to his at least fleeting presence at each slaughterhouse.
ANIMAL PEOPLE obtained confirmation of Mittal's visits from independent
witnesses. Added Mittal, "How much time you feel that one has to spend
in one slaughterhouse visit? Thirty minutes, one hour." Yohanan had further complaints. "A colleague of mine told me that the AWBI through their member
S.K. Mittal allowed the Kakkur Cattle Race," on February 25,
2007, Yohanan wrote. The race, held for more than 120 years, has
long been controversial for alleged abuse of cattle. "One of my fellow vets who was a dumb witness wrote me that
it was only because of Mittal that the race took place," Yohanon
alleged. "At first Mittal asked for certificates [of health]
from cattle owners and announced to the media that there would not
be any race. Soon ex-minister T.M.Jacob, who is the patron of the
race, sent someone to talk to him," and the race began, despite
a protest march by opponents. Video of the race affirmed Mittal's presence, but did not show
the award ceremony, at which Yohanan alleged--from second-hand testimony--that
Mittal was on the dais. Responded Mittal, "As AWBI member in charge of the Karnataka
and Kerala Regional Sub Committee of AWBI, I received information
that the Kakkur Cattle Race attracts hundreds of participants from
different parts of Kerala and nearby states. Though there is no
ban on cattle races, we do have cattle transportation rules. I informed
the district administration, the SPCA Ernakulam, and Animal Husbandry
Department officials, and went myself to initiate proper action
if any violation was noticed. "T.C. Jacob welcomed and requested me to address gathering,"
Mittal said, "and he also appreciated the AWBI taking action." Alligators Yohanan further asserted that, "S.K.Mittal made a visit to
the Kerala capital," Thiruvanathapuram, "on May 3,"
after Maneka Gandhi visited to support the Animal Rights Kerala
street dog sterilization program. The program had been interrupted
by a dispute between ARK and the city over the municipal practice
of killing dogs who have already been sterilized. According to Yohanan,
Mittal approved of the Thiruvanathapuram practices and offered the
city AWBI funding. "Mittal then went to the house of Mrs. Leila Latheef of People
for Animals- Trivandrum, and went to the PfA shelter," Yohanan
wrote. "The shelter was already inspected by Mittal himself
earlier, and later by the vice chairman of the Animal Welfare Board.
He called the vice chairman a criminal and accused him of receiving
favors. He asked Mrs. Latheef to meet him personally in his room
after 8 p.m. with the utilization certificate, which she refused
to do." Latheef also complained to the AWBI about Mittal's visit. "He was very rude to us when he inspected us and we sent a
written complaint against him," Latheef affirmed to ANIMAL
PEOPLE, accusing Mittal of "conspiring with the city to demoralise
PfA." E-mailed Mittal, "All the allegations were found baseless
and without any truth. Now the [Animal Welfare] Board has decided
that if any allegations against members are lodged and found false,
the board will take legal action against the alligator [sic]." Mittal later corrected his phrasing, after ANIMAL PEOPLE noted
the error, but added that the people accusing him and the editor
of ANIMAL PEOPLE are "worse than alligators." The next allegations against members of the AWBI appear to have
come from Mittal himself. "In July 2007 the Central Bureau of Investigation raided the
office of the AWBI on a complaint filed by Mittal," an AWBI
member told ANIMAL PEOPLE, "and took away files. The secretary
kept this matter hidden on the instructions of Mittal." Copies of the CBI report about the July raid show no indication
that any wrongdoing was found. ANIMAL PEOPLE also obtained copies
of police receipts showing that some Animal Welfare Board documents
were seized even earlier, in mid-June. The CBI investigation became public knowledge after a second series
of raids began on September 28, 2007, hitting the Blue Cross of
India head office in Chennai and the Chennai homes of three Animal
Welfare Board senior officials. New Indian Express writer K. Praveen Kumar alleged on September
29, 2007, citing an unnamed "senior CBI official," that
"The CBI anti-corruption bureau reportedly unearthed a major
grant misappropriation scam," and "suspects the involvement
of" the Blue Cross. But the only published reports about the raids at that point were
by Kumar. And Blue Cross of India chief executive Chinny Krishna, a past
member of the Animal Welfare Board, had not been a member in three
and a half years--not within Kharb's tenure as board president. Naresh Kadyan The Kumar articles were promptly posted to animal advocacy web
sites around the world, with commentary by Naresh Kadyan of PfA-Haryana,
and later by Mittal.
Kadyan was once included in the national PfA network, but Maneka
Gandhi broke off relations with him after he repeatedly accused
others of corruption in which he himself was later alleged to have
been involved.
Most prominently, police in Jhajjar on June 3, 2005 recovered two
guns, ammunition, and the remains of two rabbits and a legally protected
blackbuck from a car occupied by former Indian national cricket
team captain Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi and several of his friends.
Notified of the find, Maneka Gandhi dispatched Kadyan to recover
the blackbuck carcass and take it to the Delhi Zoo for forensic
necropsy.
On June 22, 2005 Narendra Kaushik of the Mumbai Mirror published
Kadyan's claim that Pataudi's son, actor Saif Ali Khan, had tried
to bribe him from giving testimony. Kaushik also published Khan's
denial.
Unclear, inasmuch as Kadyan's role in the case was only as a courier
of evidence, and since the primary evidence had already been examined
and documented by the Jhajjar police, was why bribing Kadyan--even
if it had been done--might have had any effect on the outcome.
More about the alleged bribery attempt surfaced from Puneet Nicholas
Yadav of the Mumbai Daily News & Analysis on November 19, 2006.
"Wildlife activist Naresh Kadyan, a witness in the case, wants
to help Pataudi - but for a price," Yadav wrote. Tipped that
Kadyan was seeking fundraising help from Pataudi and Khan, Yadav
posed as a go-between, and with the source of the tip, "met
Kadyan," Yadav recounted.
"When asked how his withdrawal from the case would help Pataudi,
Kadyan said, 'I am the key witness. Once I withdraw, the case would
fall apart.' When asked about how it was possible for him to revert
on his statement in court, given that he has been appearing in the
case from the beginning, Kadyan said, 'Everything can be bought.
Leave that to me.'"
Kadyan also admitted, according to Yadav, that he had never spoken
to the middleman he named in the alleged attempt by Khan to bribe
him, and that the man "was unnecessarily dragged into the case
due to his proximity to Maneka Gandhi, whom Kadyan wanted to 'destroy.'"
"I no longer work with Maneka since she is hogging publicity
due to her work as a wildlife activist while I am not getting any
benefit. Even I want name, fame and money. Why should Maneka walk
away with all the credit?" Kadyan reportedly told Yadav.
When Yadav identified himself and asked for comment, Kadyan said,
"I do have a soft corner for Pataudi, given the fact that he
has served the country. If Pataudi agrees to leave consuming non-vegetarian
food and promises never to hunt animals again, my stand in the case
may change."
Kadyan "dodged questions on what he meant by 'changing his
stand in the case,'" Yadav wrote.
On July 25, 2007, Kadyan e-mailed to news media, "I Naresh
Kadyan here demand that PFA Trust managed by Maneka Gandhi also
be placed under CBI net," along with a list of PfA affiliates
in which she is involved.
On September 8, 2007, Kadyan widely forwarded a New Delhi Television
report that "Bhavin Gathani, who claims to be Gandhi's personal
secretary, has been accused of collecting extortion money for slaughtering
animals instead of saving them."
Maneka Gandhi, the NDTV report concluded, "told NDTV that Gathani
had booked many butchers for cruelty to animals and that she had
always supported him" when butchers and livestock transporters
made false allegations about him to the police.
Calling Gathani "an excellent and brave animal welfare worker,"
based on his reputation and record of the past 10 years, Maneka
Gandhi told ANIMAL PEOPLE that "Apart from the fact that I
have never met him, I believe he was totally innocent, and I was
proved right when the police arrested his accusers."
But the allegation directed at Gathani and amplified by NDTV and
Kadyan turned out to have followed Kadyan himself for some time,
along with an allegation that he had spent Animal Welfare Board
of India funds to build a yoga center.
ANIMAL PEOPLE was not able to establish just exactly who did what
involving alleged bribes, butchering, and livestock transport. The
Indian meat industry is so notoriously corrupt that a recent federal
affidavit asserts that only 71 of the 456 known slaughterhouses
in India are in compliance with hygiene and pollution control standards.
The affidavit was filed in connection with Laxmi Narain Modi's most
recent attempt to close illegal slaughterhouses, following the effort
that produced Mittal's inspection report.
But ANIMAL PEOPLE confirmed that promoting yoga is among the incorporated
purposes of PfA Haryana, and that yoga is prominent among the activities
described at the PfA Haryana web site.
"Mrs. Maneka Gandhi is not a symbol of animal rights movements
in India," Kadyan e-mailed in response to questions from ANIMAL
PEOPLE. "She made baseless false allegations against me. If
I got some informations then this is my duty to inform my friends
& I am ready to face each & every thing as I am a iron man." Gouhar Azeez
The allegations triggering the September 27 CBI raids, however,
appear to have come from Gouhar Azeez, the Muslim founder and president
of an organization called Bharatiya Prani Mitra Sangh.
Though Bharatiya Prani Mitra Sangh emphasizes cow protection, it
addresses many animal issues. In 2003, after ANIMAL PEOPLE sponsored
a speaking tour of India by Gerardo Vicente, DVM, of the McKee Project
in Costa Rica, Bharatiya Prani Mitra Sangh was among the first Indian
groups to endorse the "no kill, no shelters" approach
to sterilization and street dog control that has proved successful
in Costa Rica.
Aligned with Hindu and Jain social conservatives, Azeez had been
perceived as a favorite of Maneka Gandhi. Her most prominent recent
achievement was winning a December 2006 order from the Madras High
Court against camel slaughter during the 2007 Muslim "Feast
of Atonement."
But only three days later the Madras High Court reversed itself
and instead "directed local health officials and Public Health
Officers to certify the site/place of slaughtering and check the
health condition of the animals," reported The Hindu.
More than nine months afterward, Azeez in an e-mail to Maneka Gandhi
blamed the reversal on Animal Welfare Board vice chair Appaji Rao
and the AWBI staff, several of whom had apparently voiced differences
with Azeez over legal strategy.
"They took a huge amount form the butchers and vacated the
stay order. All those animals were killed," Azeez wrote. "When
I complained to the chairman, Dr. Kharb, he promised that he would
take stringent action against the culprits. But later nobody bothered
about the cruelty inflicted to the animals."
Blue Cross of India chief executive Chinny Krishna questioned Rao
at Maneka Gandhi's request, but why Azeez imagined that the AWBI
even could have influenced the High Court reversal was never clear.
Meanwhile, Azeez on September 9, 2007 wrote to Indian prime minister
Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, urging that none of the sitting
Animal Welfare Board be reappointed, "otherwise the entire
government money will be looted."
Azeez continued with several paragraphs of allegations against Rao
and former AWBI executive secretary R. Balasubraman-ian, but offered
few specifics and no supporting documentation.
"All the funding to the board must be stopped immediately,
and the ministry should take charge of the entire funding,"
Azeez recommended. "Since this is only an advisory board they
need not get involved in the distribution of funds. "
Azeez also suggested that "A senior account officer must be
appointed or deputed preferably from New Delhi," where R. Balasubramanian
now works.
Unlike most other Indian government agencies, the Animal Welfare
Board has always been based in Chennai. Incoherant as the Azeez letter was, language parallel to it appeared in statements attributed to an anonymous CBI official by K. Praveen Kumar in his articles for the New Indian Express about the September 28 raids.
Who was raided
Chinny Krishna told ANIMAL PEOPLE that the raids, early on a Friday
morning, hit the former home of R. Balasub-ramanian, the home of
present AWBI secretary K. Ramaswamy, who has served the Animal Welfare
Board in various capacities for about 30 years, and the home of
AWBI member S. Ravindran.
In addition, Krishna said, "A team of CBI people came to the
Blue Cross and said that they wanted to see the files and papers
pertaining to the grants we received from the Animal Welfare Board
of India. During the six-hour search by five people," Krishna
recounted, "the only discrepancy they found was that a certificate
given by Ambattur municipality for one quarter stated that over
400 dogs had been spayed and vaccinated by the Blue Cross, whereas
our chief veterinarian Dr. T. P. Sekar certified only around 200
dogs in the totals we furnished to the Board.
"It was pointed out that we gave a lesser number," Krishna
continued. "The CBI official wanted to know why, and I told
him that this question should be directed at the Ambattur municipality."
While the Blue Cross claimed to have done fewer sterilizations than
Ambattur said were done, K. Praveen Kumar on October 1, 2007 quoted
his anonymous source as alleging that humane societies "conduct
Animal Birth Control on limited numbers of dogs and then create
documents to prove that they have done it on a larger number and
collect extra money."
Continued Kumar, "According to highly placed sources in the
CBI, they have got substantial evidence about the mis-utilization
of Central Government grants by the majority" of participants
in the national Animal Birth Control program.
As well as echoing Azeez, the allegations echoed claims made by
public officials in Bangalore and Hyderabad earlier in 2007, after
several fatal attacks by dogs in areas not actually within the service
radius of any ABC programs brought a hue-and-cry for dismantling
the local ABC programs and resuming killing dogs.
Before the introduction of ABC, hiring dogcatchers was an important
source of patronage jobs for office holders cultivating illiterate
support.
But despite the eagerness of some of the Bangalore and Hyderabad
populists to put dog-killers back on the payroll, no mismanagement
or misuse of funds by any of the Bangalore and Hyderabad nonprofit
Animal Birth Control programs was ever documented.
In the ten years since the Animal Birth Control approach became
Indian national policy, significant corruption has been documented
only in ABC programs managed by municipal governments.
Kumar's anonymous CBI source acknowledged that any specific allegations
would have to "be substantiated after validation of documents."
No charges were immediately filed, or even mentioned as pending.
Krishna characterized the New Indian Express coverage as "vague,
unsubstantiated, and irresponsible."
Said Krishna, "There have been allegations against the officials
of the Animal Welfare Board of India that grant moneys are not being
properly given. I was specifically told by a Mr. Krishnamurthy of
the CBI that there were some corruption charges received against
some board officials.
"To be fair to the officials," Krishna said, "they
process the grants after the grants are approved by the Animal Welfare
Board, which consists of 28 people. However, inspections are carried
out by paid Board employees," Krishna acknowledged. The inspectors'
recommendations help the Animal Welfare Board members in their deliberations
about which projects to fund, in what amounts. Unlike the Animal
Welfare Board staff, the board members serve without pay.
"Considering that a total of about $2 million U.S. is divided
up among several hundred groups, there is not much to go around,"
Krishna observed. Icebergs in India?
"Fund mis-utilization by the Blue Cross is tip of an iceberg,"
Kumar further quoted the anonymous alleged senior CBI official.
"We have got enough material to show that many such organizations
have been indulging in similar activities. Our Cochin unit officers
raided the People for Animals office at Thiruvananthapuram,"
for example, where supposedly "PfA members diverted the grant
allocated for animal shelter construction and used it for their
own house construction."
Thiruvanathapuram was formerly known as Trivandrum.
"There have been raids on our trustees' residences," PfA-Trivandrum
chief executive Leela Latheef acknowledged to ANIMAL PEOPLE. "We
are being questioned every day by the CBI, and being unnecessarily
harassed for even small administrative blunders."
At issue, Latheef said, is how PfA Trivandrum has used an Animal
Welfare Board grant for shelter construction.
"We were paid the shelter grant two years back and our shelter
is nearing completion," Latheef told ANIMAL PEOPLE. "We
will start operating it in its incomplete state because we are hard
pressed for shelter space. We have not applied for Animal Birth
Control funds," Latheef said, "because we don't want to
apply before we get our hospital functional. But we are having some
severe problems with the Animal Welfare Board," Latheef admitted.
"They inspected our shelter premises and then sent us a 'show
cause' notice asking us why we should not be penalized for violations
in utilizing the grant."
The alleged violations, Latheef said, are that "The shelter
is located far from the city; according to the municipal records,
there are not many dogs in the area; we have not signed a memo of
understanding [to do Animal Birth Control] with the city; and we
don't have valid building permits.
"Our shelter is only 13 kilometers from the city, and is located
in a quiet area because we do not want city people complaining about
noise and other kinds of pollution," Latheef explained. "The
city's own ABC program was stalled for about two years by people
who did not want dogs in the veterinary center in the middle of
the city."
The only dog counts done in the shelter vicinity, Latheef said,
are of pets brought to the local veterinary hospital for treatment.
No one has done a street dog census, but on average the Indian street
dog population is two to three times the pet dog population when
ABC programs begin, defining "pet" as any dog who is regularly
fed by the same people.
PfA-Trivandrum has not contracted to do ABC with the city of Thiruvanathapuram,
Latheef said, because the present city administration has balked
at working with humane organizations.
The first ABC program in the city, begun in 2003 by Animal Rights
Kerala, in September 2006 trained 25 dogcatchers to assist a municipal
ABC program that never got started. Instead, the dogcatchers "used
all the information we had given them to go out and kill all the
dogs in Thiruvanatha-puram and surrounding areas, including our
sterilized dogs," alleged ARK founder Avis Lyons.
When Lyons tried to intervene against a round-up of sterilized dogs
in February 2007, she was charged with assault.
Paid per dog caught, the catchers subsequently hired themselves
out to catch and kill dogs in other cities.
"We have not been given any clarification by the Animal Welfare
Board regarding how our building permits are deficient," Latheef
told ANIMAL PEOPLE. "We have written many letters and reminders
in response to their 'show cause' notices, but have not received
even one reply.
"Another allegation against us," Latheef added, "is
that we are building a guest house and not a shelter." This
allegation originated, Latheef guessed, because the structure that
is to house puppies and the PfA-Trivandrum administrative offices
"has three bathrooms in it and looks good." Blue Cross rebuttal
"We suspect large-scale diversion and misappropriation of grants
in many Chennai organizations also," Kumar of the New India
Express quoted the anonymous CBI official.
"The Blue Cross has nothing to hide," responded Chinny
Krishna. "We can categorically state that we have given nothing
to any official of the Animal Welfare Board for any grants sanctioned.
In fact, we have been consistently given 75 rupees less on each
dog we have spayed than the 445 rupees we are supposed to get, since
we are not paid for the catching and transportation component. Dogs
caught outside the Madras corporation limits account for about 50%
of the dogs we fix," Krishna explained.
"These dogs are caught, transported and returned by our vehicles
and staff. Only those dogs caught by the city inside the city limits
are caught by the city dog catchers," Krishna said, "and
even these dogs are returned to their original locations by the
Blue Cross staff, using our vehicles.
"Most importantly," Krishna said, "we were funded
by the Animal Welfare Board for only a portion of the Animal Birth
Control program work we have done. In 2006-2007," for example,
"they funded 7,000 surgeries," Krishna said, "but
we did close to 10,000 in Chennai and suburbs, not including the
4,500 we did in Kanchipuram."
Some Indian animal welfare organizations are chiefly funded by government
grants, Krishna acknowledged, but grants to the Blue Cross amount
to barely more than a sixth of the total organizational budget,
and less than half of the total cost of the Blue Cross's Animal
Birth Control program. "Tried to prevent gossips"
A memo from a senior official in the Indian Ministry of Environment
& Forests, forwarded to ANIMAL PEOPLE from several different
sources who obtained it, identified Mittal as bragging "that
he was the person who engineered the CBI raids on many PFAs and
Blue Cross."
Asked what substantial information he might have had to give to
the CBI, Mittal said, "It is better known to CBI and the AWOs
raided by them. If I know also I will not pass on. I am not the
complainant," Mittal protested further. "I may be having
information with me, but I am not going to speak at this juncture
as an investigating agency is in action and official secrecy prevents
me. I have not attacked of my own but tried to prevent the gossips
spread by others."
Mittal also asserted that speculation unsuccessful grant applicants
were behind the allegations against the Animal Welfare Board and
Blue Cross was a "clear attack on the United Progressive Alliance,"
without explaining why he thought this might be clear to anyone.
Mittal refused to comment on suggestions from several directions
that his role in the CBI investigation began when word leaked from
the prime minister's office that he would not be reappointed, due
to complaints from other members.
Asked one AWBI member, "Why does Mittal and his gang of assorted
meat traders want to be on the board? Because the Supreme Court
order asking the AWBI to inspect slaughterhouses is an open invitation
to make money from illegal slaughterhouse owners."
Be that as it may, Mittal's major recommendation for improving the
governance of slaughterhouses was "to suggest the onus be shifted
from civic bodies & be put on the animal owner [or] person offering
the animal for slaughter and taking the carcass to the meat stall." Individual veterinarians, rather than civil service employees, would be paid by the sellers to inspect the animals and carcasses, a system likely to produce administrative chaos, losing any hope of accountability. -Merritt Clifton Why Best Friends bought Dogwood Kennels BYRNES CHAPEL, Virginia-- The Best Friends Animal
Society surprised dog breeder Ivan Schmucker Jr. and quite a few
other people on October 12, 2007 by using an undercover intermediary
to buy Schmucker's Dogwood Kennels inventory of 178 dogs, including
newborn puppies.
Started without required county permits, Dogwood Kennels became
intensely controversial after a March 21, 2007 fire killed 167 dogs.
Best Friends organized local opposition to Schmucker's attempts
to get the necessary permits and rebuild the business with about
100 dogs who survived the fire.
"Fairly often, we get requests from folks who want us to help
'rescue' animals from puppy mills by buying the animals. Our policy
has always been to advise against it," Best Friends chief executive
officer Paul Berry told ANIMAL PEOPLE. "This situation was
different. Schmucker tried to get back into the business in other
counties, but we followed him everywhere he tried to relocate, and
educated officials to ensure that he failed each time." Eventually,
"he declared he was getting out of the business, and added
he would 'rather sell the dogs at auction than see them go to animal
rescuers.' At that point, we decided to go the route we did. Given
that we helped put him out of business, and given all those dogs
had been through, it just seemed to us the ethical, responsible
thing to do in this particular case." Berry pledged that Best Friends will again intervene to stop Schmucker
if he makes further efforts to get permits to return to dog breeding. Hawaii record dog attack verdictHONOLULU--A circuit court jury on October 12, 2007 awarded a Hawaii dog attack case record $850,000 to Keeton Manguso, age four, and his mother Veronica Tomooka, who were mauled at Kahala Beach on Mother's Day 2005 by a Rottweiler belonging to Mariko Bereday. "The jury awarded Manguso's family $500,000 in punitive damages and $350,000 in general damages. The award included $6,500 in medical bills," reported Hawaii Advertiser staff writer Gordon Y.K. Pang. "Bereday told reporters that photos taken of the boy's wounds were faked," Pang added. "Bereday also said that she intends to appeal. During a separate criminal proceeding last year involving the incident and another attack involving a 4-year-old girl six days after the attack on Keeton, Bereday was sentenced to five days in jail and a $2,000 fine. The dog was ordered destroyed. The case is under appeal. The girl victim's family has also sued Bereday."
Christine Townend retires"I have retired as a trustee of Help In Suffering after 17 years of almost full-time voluntary work," Christine Townend e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE on October 22, 2007. "Jack Reece," the Help In Suffering senior veterinarian, "will take over as a trustee in my place." Townend and Animal Liberation author Peter Singer cofounded the Australian animal rights group Animal Liberation, now Animals Australia, in 1978. Townend in 1992 succeeded founder Crystal Rogers as head trustee of the original Help In Suffering hospital and shelter in Jaipur, India, and later expanded the organization to run a second hospital in Darjeeling, in the Himalayan foothills. She received a lifetime achievement medal from the Winsome Constance Kindness Trust in 2006.
Recall bid for funding shelter Gwyn Foro, the only member of the Surprise City, Arizona town
council who did not face recall in 2005, is now facing possible
recall for making two allocations of $10,000 to Maricopa County
Animal Care & Control, which serves the community. Other councillors
have already abolished the discretionary fund from which Foro made
the allocations.
|
