Child mauled by strays: FIR to be lodged, builder blames animal activists

NOIDA: The six-year-old girl who was mauled by at least six dogs in the basement of the Lotus Boulevard society was dragged by the dogs for a distance of 50 meters who bit flesh from the child's limbs.
The child who has wounds on her entire body apart from her face, was saved by a driver who found the child groaning in pain with dogs surrounding her from all side.
The incident happened around 7:30am when Mahi’s father Dinesh had gone to clean the cars leaving the child on the table he uses for pressing clothes.
According to the mother, Nisha, the incident happened when the girl was sleeping on the table. “She was pulled down and dragged by the hounds who bit her clothes to pieces and bit her flesh. She is in a terrible state,” she said.
Nisha cannot stop thanking Prem Singh, a driver who works in the same society.
“My child would not have been saved if the driver Prem Singh had not arrived on time. By the time he came, her screams had been changed to groans and the dogs had bitten every part of her body except her face. However, he bravely stood over my daughter guarding her with his legs as the dogs surrounded him from all sides,” Nisha told TOI.
However, Prem Singh’s presence was not enough as the dogs had grown very ferocious by then and scared him too.
“He screamed for help even as he guarded my daughter and called others too. Another presser Sahib Lal arrived and helped scare away the dogs with the help of a stick,” she said.
Doctors said full recovery will take a few months although the girl is likely to be discharged within two-three days.
The family of the child has alleged negligence on the part of the management saying that there are around 50 dogs which keep on roaming in the society and none of the guards spotted the child being mauled by dogs and the incident could have been averted had a guard been present.
In his complaint to police against directors of 3 C company Vikas Anand, SK Singh, General Manager Sanjay Bhargava and facility manager Amit Malhan, Mahi’s father has said that multiple complaints about stray dogs made to the 3C management by the residents have gone unheeded. “The entire responsibility of security is on these four people and they do not maintain security arrangements despite lakhs of money being paid to them by residents,” reads the complaint, in possession of TOI.
Police had earlier refused to file an FIR in the matter saying that the matter pertains to “strays” and not “pets” but agreed to lodge an FIR against the four named accused under section 389 (negligent conduct with respect to animal).
“It has been alleged by the society members that the dogs are being fed by some of the society members are they are hence, pets. Both sides need to be probed,” Sector 39 SO Avnish Dixit, told TOI.
Amit Malhan, facility manager of the society told TOI that whenever they take any action against the strays like asking the guards to drive them away with a stick, they get calls from the office of Ambika Shukla's Sanjay Gandhi Animal Care Centre. “Whenever we try to take an action against strays, we get a call from the organisation of Ambika Shukla. I have been pursuing the issue with the health department of the Authority for the past four months but to no avail. Residents first feed the dogs and then want us to take action. We are stuck in the middle,” he said.
When contacted by TOI, Vikram Gandhi, a representative for the Gurgaon unit of the Peoples For Animals sought details of the incident and the version of the 3C builder and promised to get back on Wednesday.