Young animal lover saves male calf

NAGPUR: Even as a huge outcry is being made to remove stray cattle from city roads, a young girl turned out to be a good Samaritan to save a male calf.
Animal lover Preeti Gupta, who is doing her BA final, had sighted the injured calf near Gajanan Society, Rameshwari, on Monday. She noticed that the neck of the bovine had deep cuts due to a nylon rope tied tightly around it."The rope seemed to be quite old and was not visible immediately due to the skin coat around the neck," Preeti said.
Moved by the calf's plight, Preeti called up a veterinarian doctor Ali Khan. He suggested that they take help of Karishma Galani's People For Animals (PFA). Galani, in turn sought the help of NMC vet Dr Satish Bhoyar, who sent a cattle pound team.
"We made unsuccessful attempts to catch the calf. The drama continued for three days and finally on Thursday morning we traced the calf on Rameshwari road and were successful in trapping the one-year-old bovine with the help of NMC's Anil gang," Preeti said.
Efforts were also made by Dr Khan to catch the calf by administering anaesthesia. However, the needle gave way and the calf once again managed to run away.
In between, talks were on with the Gorakshan at Dhantoli, whose office-bearers promised to keep the calf with them. On Thursday, Preeti and her mother, accompanied by the NMC vehicle, went to Gorakshan to hand over the rescued calf.
A peeved Preeti said, "On the occasion of Pola, people go gaga by performing pooja of wooden toy bulls, but it's really shocking that no one cares for living animals." Earlier, Preeti had rescued a dog in a similar way and later adopted it. The dog continues to be her loyal pet.
Galani demanded that NMC should set up an animal rescue centre with trained people who could handle such emergencies.