Social media websites are awash with a particularly barbaric video of a rare Gangetic Dolphin being mercilessly hacked to death by the locals in Uttar Pradesh’s Pratapgarh. The police took cognisance of the cruelness meted out to the aquatic animal and arrested 3 men who were seen in the video flogging the dolphin.
Three arrested in Pratapgarh,after their video beating a Gangetic #dolphin to death with sticks and axe went viral. Forest officials had lodged FIR on Dec 31. @IndianExpress pic.twitter.com/Qya4u3v8G9
— Maulshree Seth (@MaulshreeSeth) January 8, 2021
The three men were booked by the police on December 31 after they were seen in the video savagely attacking the dolphin in the waters till it bled to death. The group of men surrounded the dolphin that had gotten trapped in the shallow waters of the Sharda Sahayak canal in Pratapgarh and started raining lathis, wooden logs and axes at the poor speechless animal.
The Gangetic dolphins are one of the rare aquatic species that are on the verge of extinction due to rampant hunting incidents.
Accused claim they mistook the dolphin for a poisonous fish
Apparently, the locals mistook the dolphin for a ‘deadly fish’ and started attacking it. The incident took place on the last day of the calendar year 2020. Soon after the hapless animal was hacked to death, the local police and forest officials had reached the spot and had sent the body for postmortem.
“In the morning of the New Year, local people saw the dolphin moving in the water. Some said it was a ‘deadly and poisonous fish’ while others said it could kill people who went near it. A huge crowd collected at the spot and people decided that it would be dangerous to let it go. The crowds started beating the dolphin and some even hit with an axe,” the source quoted by IANS said.
However, the matter was kept under tight wraps until the video went viral on Wednesday when someone posted the clip of the dolphin being to death by the locals. The forest officials, however, evaded making comments on the issue, stating that it is yet to be verified if it was actually a dolphin.
Three men want to throw a feast to the entire village: Jagran report
Though the accused claimed that they attacked the aquatic animal thinking it to be a poisonous fish, a report published in Jagran states that the three men killed the dolphin intending to give a feast to the entire village. The three men arrested were identified as Rahul, Anuj and Rahul.
