Kamal Ghorui
MUMBAI: Film actor Pulkit Makol’s fiancée lodged a complaint with Amboli police on Tuesday alleging that a maintenance staff member who was hired for cleaning and dog care work in her flat had sexually assaulted two female canines in her flat in Andheri (West). Amboli police booked the staff member under the animal cruelty act.The case was filed by Tanvi Khanna against the maintenance staff member, Ranjan Shah, who is the suspect in the case. “Shah was hired to clean and take care of the dog in my flat. I always stay in Delhi for work and occasionally in Mumbai. Also, Makol is often in Mumbai or outside Mumbai for shooting,” said Khanna in the FIR.The complaint stated that when Khanna was in Delhi for her office work, the maintenance staff changed the CCTV camera direction. She asked Makol and her neighbour to check the flat and found out that the suspect had been sexually assaulting the canines.In the FIR, Khanna said: “I was in Delhi for work for the last seven days. On Tuesday at 2 am, while I was in Delhi, I was talking to Makol. After that, I turned on the CCTV cameras installed in the flat on my mobile to check if the dogs were sleeping. I saw our servant, Shah, turning the camera around 12 am. At that time, I suspected that Shah was doing something inappropriate. When I observed my dogs in the CCTV cameras, I noticed they were behaving differently than usual.“At that time, Khanna called her neighbour Saurabh Bedi and asked him to go to the flat. “Bedi along with his friend Mahak went to the flat. A little later, Makol also reached the flat. When they took both dogs into custody and questioned Shah, he initially gave evasive answers and said he was playing with the dogs. But when everyone threatened and questioned him, he admitted that he had touched the private part of the small white dog among the two dogs with his finger and had sexually assaulted the large golden dog,” said a police officer of the Amboli police station.They called the police control room on 100 for help, and the police took Shah to the police station for further action.Police have served notice to Shah, who has been booked under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, which defines and prohibits various forms of animal cruelty. It penalises beating, torturing, starving, abandoning, or overloading animals, punishable with fines (first offence) or fines and imprisonment up to three months (subsequent offences).
