- Animal activists allege increase in cruelty against animals after Supreme Court order
Noida: At a press conference held at the Noida Media Club on Friday, animal activists claimed that misleading figures are being presented in India regarding rabies infection, cruelty to animals, and stray animals. Animal rights activist and filmmaker Sankshay Babbar said that the Supreme Court’s interim order of November 7, 2025, has inadvertently given rise to a national crisis. He explained that the order to remove stray dogs from “institutional areas” violates the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023, which mandates that dogs be returned to their original area after sterilization. Mr Babbar said that this legal change has been misinterpreted as a “license for cruelty,” emboldening anti-animal elements and leading to a horrific increase in violence against them.
According to animal activists, weekly reports from ground-level volunteer have documented over 1000 horrifying cases of crimes against animals. Several cases of animal cruelty have surfaced in the national capital, Delhi, including one where a puppy’s hind legs were deliberately severed. Another man was arrested for allegedly raping 13 dogs. In Bhopal, a puppy’s jaw was blown off after explosives were hidden in its food. In Karnataka, a leader allegedly proudly admitted to poisoning 2,800 dogs, claiming to be following the “spirit” of the court order.
The animal activists alleged that women who actively feed or care for stray dogs are facing constant harassment. In West Delhi’s Paschim Vihar, a man attacked an elderly couple with an iron pipe after a dispute over a dog, leaving them severely injured. In Zakir Nagar, Delhi, a woman was brutally beaten by her neighbors simply for laying out “sackcloth beds” for stray dogs to sleep on. In Brahmaputra Enclave, Ghaziabad, a woman who was feeding stray dogs at night was slapped by a resident of the society. The attack was so severe that her hand was fractured.
Present at the press conference were Anirudh Ravindra from Pran Animal Foundation, Bengaluru; Sushmita Ghosh, President of SAS India, Delhi-NCR; Abhimanyu Pathak from Maitri Bhavna Foundation, Jaipur; Ahinsa Fellow and legal researcher Ayan Ali Siddiqui from Bhopal; and Hanumanth Rao and Gauri Vandana from AASRA-Hyderabad. All of them confirmed the apprehension that incidents of cruelty against animals have increased since the court’s ruling.
