New Dogfighting Video Exposé by PETA India Reveals Appalling Cruelty 

For Immediate Release:

13 September 2022

Contact: 

Hiraj Laljani; [email protected]  

Radhika Suryavanshi; [email protected]  

Footage of Illegal Blood Sport Makes Case for Ban on Pit Bull Breeding 

Delhi – Today, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India released its new investigation video created with footage supplied by Fauna Police, documenting the many and often lethal injuries that animals sustain in dogfights, a type of illegal blood sport involving gambling that operates in secrecy in fields and dog-fighting rings predominantly in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh as well as in the union territories of Delhi and Jammu. In light of this footage – which shows bettors eagerly watching as dogs are ripped apart – PETA India is calling on the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying to prohibit the keeping and breeding of the types of dogs most commonly exploited for dogfighting – pit bulls and other “bully” breeds – through an urgent amendment to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Dog Breeding and Marketing) Rules, 2017.  

The investigation video is available upon request. 

The eyewitness footage gathered by Fauna Police shows how dogfighters train pit bulls, Pakistani bully kuttas, and mixed-breed dogs by goading them into killing Asian palm civets, foxes, leopards, wild boars, and other wild animals. Puppies are provoked into fighting each other, and community dogs are exploited for “practice”. The fights can leave the dogs so exhausted they can no longer continue or defend themselves. The dogs are encouraged to fight until at least one gets seriously injured or dies. 

“Dogfighters choose secret locations where they force animals to tear each other apart, so anyone who sees or learns of these rings must be quick to report them to the police,” says PETA India Veterinary Policy Advisor Dr Nithin Krishnegowda. “PETA India is urging the government to join the effort to stop dogfights by making it illegal to breed and keep pit bull–type dogs, the most abused dogs on the planet.” 

In India, inciting dogs to fight is illegal under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. Yet organised dogfights are prevalent in parts of India. Pit bull–type dogs are commonly bred for use in illegal fighting or kept on heavy chains as attack dogs, resulting in a lifetime of suffering. Many endure painful physical mutilations such as ear-cropping – an illegal process that involves removing part of a dog’s ears to prevent another dog from grabbing them in a fight, thereby losing the fight. 

PETA India’s request for a prohibition on the breeding and keeping of dog breeds deliberately bred for fighting comes within just two months of news of a pit bull attack in Meerut in which a teenager was critically injured, another pit bull attack which left a 13-year-old from Punjab with a mangled ear, a woman who was left in a critical condition after a pit bull attack in Gurugram, and an elderly woman in Lucknow who was mauled to death by her son’s pit bull.  

PETA India is also seeking the closure of illegal pet shops and breeders and a crackdown on illegal dogfights throughout the nation. PETA India recommends that the ban on pit bull–type dogs be achieved by requiring owners to declare breeds placed on the prohibited list for mandatory sterilisation and government registration within a month of the issuance of a directive by states and union territories as well as by prohibiting any new dogs of these breeds from being bred, kept, or sold after a stipulated date immediately following the completion of that month. 

Requesting action, PETA India has sent letters – available upon request – to Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Shri Parshottam Rupala; chair of the Animal Welfare Board of India Dr OP Chaudharay; and the heads of various states.  

PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETAIndia.com or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. 

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