A 45-year-old man was arrested after he was caught sexually abusing a stray dog on a pavement outside a veterinary clinic in Malad West.
It was a resident, Ruksana Shaikh, who raised the alarm at around
11:30 pm on April 26 — she had just left the clinic with her pet cat when she witnessed the act.
According to a report by Times of India, the clinic staff confronted the accused, who yelled that the dog didn’t belong to them. The dog named ‘Shadow’, yelping in pain, belonged to a nearby dairy owner.
Malwani Police reached the spot after the emergency helpline was dialled and arrested the man, identified as Naresh Chandulkar of Malad East. He was booked under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 1960.
What makes this case deeply alarming is not just its brutality — it’s how routine it has become.
Has This Happened Before In India?
Repeatedly, and with disturbing frequency. PETA India has received over 40 complaints of sexual assault on animals since July 2024 alone. Victims include cows, dogs, goats and horses.
In Mumbai itself, a 20-year-old was caught sexually abusing a two-month-old puppy inside a public toilet in Malad’s Kurar village in January 2026, and a 40-year-old man was nabbed while sexually abusing a female dog inside a drain in Kandivali East in February 2026.
Cases have been reported from Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore and even a tiger reserve in Maharashtra.
What Does Psychology Say About Why This Happens?
Research published in Psychology Today is unambiguous: people who engage in animal sexual abuse rarely limit their deviant sexual interests to animals alone.
Studies have consistently identified connections between bestiality and child sexual abuse and the consumption of child pornography — nearly one-third of offenders convicted of bestiality-related arrests had either forced a child to observe or participate in sexual acts with animals, or had sexually abused both children and animals.
Psychologists classify this as “paraphilic crossover” — where one atypical sexual behaviour frequently accompanies others.
Research also links it to childhood trauma, antisocial personality disorder, and a need for power and control over a being that cannot resist or report the abuse.
What Does Indian Law Say — And Where Does It Fall Short?
This is where the story turns deeply troubling. For decades, Section 377 of the IPC was the primary statute used to prosecute bestiality, carrying penalties of life imprisonment or up to 10 years in jail. But when the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) replaced the IPC on July 1, 2024, Section 377 was scrapped entirely — without any replacement provision addressing sexual crimes against animals.
Today, police can only invoke BNS Section 325, which deals with mischief involving killing or maiming animals, and the PCA Act — which prescribes a penalty as low as Rs 50 for first-time offenders, a figure activists mock as a “licence to abuse.”
Is There Any Push To Fix This?
Yes, but progress is slow. The Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations has filed PILs in both the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court.
A pending Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Amendment) Bill proposes Section 13A, which would restore life imprisonment or up to 10 years’ jail for bestiality.
The Delhi High Court has twice nudged the government — in August 2024 and May 2025 — to act, but no judgment or amendment has come through yet.
How Does The World View This?
Most democracies treat it as a serious criminal offence. Germany, the UK, Norway, Sweden and Denmark have all explicitly banned it by law.
Denmark tightened its law as recently as 2015, specifically to close loopholes that only criminalised the act when demonstrable harm to the animal could be proved — a standard strikingly similar to India’s current toothless position.
In India, Shadow yelped in pain on a public pavement, in front of witnesses, outside a vet’s clinic. Her abuser was arrested. Whether he faces meaningful punishment remains, for now, an open question.
