Let me tell you a story that will take you on an emotional rollercoaster with a happy ending. Last year this time the netizens were enraged by a video that went viral on social media. The video showed a man throwing a puppy off a roof of a five-story building in Chennai.
A few people took it upon themselves to fight for justice. They tracked down the accused and managed to even find the puppy alive in the area it was thrown.
The puppy has been named Bhadra by the ones who rescued her, she is now a year and six months old.
Bhadra was severely injured, she had a spinal injury and animal rights activist, Shravan Krishnan took her in to care for her.
Krishnan spoke about the fame Bhadra received after surviving the tragic fall. He said, “People would stand outside my house hoping to get to meet Bhadra or take a selfie with her because of how popular she had become. There was a lot of media attention. Every day someone would come to take photographs of Bhadra, so my friend took the dog in his care.”
Karthik Dhandapani, a Blue Cross volunteer decided to adopt Bhadra after taking her from his friend Krishnan.
Karthik has never owned a pet as his mother never agreed to it but Bhadra is special and a fighter, she won Karthik’s mother’s heart instantly.
Karthik said, “Bhadra loves my mother’s chapatis just as much as she loves chasing crows. Sometimes we take her up there (terrace) three-four times a day.”
The events leading up to catching the accused:
Once the video went viral, Humane Society announced Rs. 1,00,000 lakh as a reward to anyone who can provide information about the two men in the video.
It was revealed that the man in the video was Gautam Sudarshan, a medical student at Kundrathur in Kancheepuram district who nonchalantly threw the dog off the roof. The man filming it was identified as Ashish Pal, who was also a medical student.
Krishnan along with Anthony Clement Rubin and Jennifer Jacob, who are animal rights activists lodged a police complaint against the culprits to ensure justice.
The accused, Gautam and Ashish were both expelled from their college and the possibility of them ever getting a medical license has been nullified. The two had to pay Rs. 2 lakh each to the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) as a penalty that was demanded by the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University.
And finally the happy ending: Krishnan who cared for Bhadra described her perfectly, “She has a bruised past, but an unbroken spirit.”
