Following Attack on Child, PETA India Calls On Chief Minister to Ban Dog Breeds Used for Illegal Fighting
For Immediate Release:
19 January 2024
Contact:
Hiraj Laljani; [email protected]
Shaurya Agrawal; [email protected]
New Delhi – In response to the latest in a string of attacks by foreign dog breeds bred for aggression that left a 7-year-old girl critically injured in the Sector 25 area of Rohini, Delhi, PETA India has written to Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal requesting that he prohibit pit bulls, other breeds, and their crossbreeds who are used for illegal fighting and to crack down on unlicensed pet shops and breeders.
In its letter, PETA India noted that the UK government has added XL bully dogs to a list of breeds which are banned in England and Wales. (The breed is a variant of the American bully.)
The copy of the letter sent to Kejriwal is available upon request.
“Pit bull terriers, American bullies, Pakistani bully kuttas, and other dogs who are bred to fight are commonly abused. These dogs are often forced to fight to their deaths by gamblers and are otherwise trained to attack,” says PETA India Advocacy Associate Shaurya Agrawal. “A policy that prohibits the keeping and breeding of these dogs and its enforcement would protect these dogs and humans, too.”
Because such dogs are commonly bred to be used in illegal fighting or kept on heavy chains as attack dogs, they endure a lifetime of suffering which causes them to become fearful and defensive. 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 during a fight. Pit bulls and other dogs bred for aggression are often sold to unsuspecting people who are attacked or unable to control them.
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 including Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh.
The municipal corporations of Chandigarh, Ghaziabad, Kanpur, and Panchkula as well as countries such as Australia, Germany, and the UK have already taken steps to prohibit the keeping, breeding, or sale of such breeds in response to the public’s growing concern about animal welfare and human safety.
PETA India – whose motto reads, “Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETAIndia.com or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.
#
