Beaten up for feeding stray dog, pups: Woman

CHENNAI: Bank professional

Savithra Manoharan

, 31, of Choolaimedu, says a couple in the locality attacked her on Wednesday night because she had been feeding a

stray dog

and its pups in the area.

Police on Friday said Savithra, an animal lover who dotes on dogs, sustained head injuries and is receiving treatment at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital. The

Choolaimedu police

have filed a case against the couple for harassing a woman and threatening her li fe, on a complaint by the bank official.

Savithra said she had been feeding a stray dog and its puppies on

Basha Street

in Choolaimedu for the past month. When she went to feed the dog and its pups on Wednesday a man and his wife who live at 120, Basha Street, accosted her and picked up a quarrel.

“The man said stray dogs had been snatching their footwear from outside their house,“ she said. “He told me to stop feeding the dog and its puppies.“

Savithra replied that if dogs in the locality were a nuisance or caused him any inconvenience, he could inform the corporation and the

civic body

would send its dog squad. The squad, she said, would take the stray dogs and have them sterilised. “I was polite with the couple,“ she said. “But the man and his wife were very rude.“

According to the complaint that she lodged with the Choolaimedu police, when the man said he was “refraining from doing anything“ to her only because she was a woman, Savithra lost her patience. An argument followed between Savithra and the couple. “The man suddenly approached me and, before I could realise what was happening, he pushed me and banged my head against a wall,“ Savithra told TOI. A constable who arrived at the spot found the man who had attacked the bank official was drunk. At the police station, the man said Savithra injured herself when she hit her head on the wall.

Savithra informed her mother, a police inspector in Coimbatore, about the fracas. Her mother spoke to Choolaimedu police officers and they said they would look into the case.

Savithra said she was in hospital for treatment and could not lodge a police complaint on Thursday. She filed a complaint on Friday.

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