Punish him
Elected representatives resorting to violent actions in the legislative assemblies have become instances of common occurrences in the country. But it is probably for the first time that an elected representative has directed his anger towards a poor hapless animal. The BJP MLA from Mussoorie in Dheradun allegedly assaulted and caused grievous injuries to a police horse during a protest march which led to amputation of the hind leg of the animal to save it from infection and its replacement with a prosthetic leg. The poor horse ended up handicapped for the rest of life for no fault of its own. This act of violence only goes to show as to how low politicians in the country can stoop to. The poor horse was only doing its duty as it was led by the cop mounted on it. For this act of violence against the horse, the MLA was reportedly arrested and sent to 14-day judicial custody by a court after an FIR was lodged against him The law should take its own course in the case and the politician if found guilty should be dealt with as per the provisions of the law.
Adelmo Fernandes, Vasco
Value human life
That there were almost 21,000 people bitten by stray dogs in Goa in 2015 itself is a startling statistic. One can of course attribute the abundance of garbage everywhere to the stray dog menace, as they as scavengers by nature and will of course gather where there is food. But there has to be an answer to the many incidents of attacks and bites. The ABC programme is grounded in logic, and sterilizing and vaccinating them, with the help of Mission Rabies does ensure that many attacks do not lead to anything severe, but there are limits to all these programmes. The fact remains that we cannot have this many canines on the streets. They are a nuisance and a danger to human life. At the end of the day, animal life should be cherished but it cannot be compared to the value of human life. Care must be taken to ensure the safe health of dogs and adoption programmes must be encouraged. But after a certain amount of time, dogs that cannot be housed have to be put to sleep.
Bhushan Kamat, Panaji
Crematorium needed
Now Goa is a cosmopolitan place with people from all over India coming here to stay and work, run businesses, etc, settling on retirement and those visiting on holidays. Goa has become world famous but lacks crematoriums for all other communities, atheists, agnostics, foreigners, etc and for those want to be cremated. In the absence of such crematoriums people are put to a lot of inconvenience and hardships in case of death of their dear ones. Foreigners also are put to a lot of inconvenience. Such facilities will also enable the police department to cremate unclaimed bodies.
Vincent Vaz, Macazana
