(IN) Fur flies in jail over pet killers

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Saturday, December 30, 2000 - South China Morning Post.

by RAHUL BEDI in New Delhi

 

Burmese prisoners are terrorising local inmates in an Indian jail by eating

their pet cats and dogs and beating up owners who try to save them.

N. K. Chakraborty, of the Alipore Presidency jail in the Bengal state capital

Calcutta, said the 58 Burmese inmates considered cat and dog meat a delicacy and

constantly hunted the animals inside the prison. Fights erupted when the owners

attempted to save their pets.

 

Mr Chakraborty said the local inmates were afraid of the Burmese. So, too, were

their pets, which rarely left their owners' cells for fear of being caught and

eaten.

 

The prison official said whenever an animal strayed into the open, the Burmese

prisoners would pounce on it. Fights would always follow, he said.

 

" Many lifers keeps dogs and cats to tide them over their loneliness, " Mr

Chakraborty said. " They take it seriously when their pets are hurt or killed. "

 

The Burmese prisoners, all of them sailors, were recently shifted to Alipore

jail from Talmuk prison in Midnapore district 140km east following fierce

clashes with other inmates whose pet cats and dogs they had killed.

 

When the animal owners protested, demanding that the jail authorities transfer

the Burmese, they were reportedly badly beaten by the foreigners.

 

After a stand-off with officials lasting several months, ending in a hunger

strike, the Burmese were eventually moved to Alipore jail.

 

The Burmese sailors were arrested when their Taiwanese-registered trawler

strayed into Indian waters off the east coast two years ago.

 

Their release was ordered a few months later by Indian authorities. However, the

Burmese Government refused to accept them, claiming they were Taiwanese.