Ipoh City Council Worker Shot And Killed A Dog Despite Pleas By Residents To Stop
The Ipoh City Council is standing by the action taken by its officer.
By Sadho Ram — 25 May 2019, 10:38 AM
Earlier this week, an Ipoh City Hall worker shot and killed a stray dog in a housing estate. The incident was captured in a video.
In the video, which had gone viral before being taken down, the stray is seen lying in a pool of blood while struggling in pain, for over a minute.
The council worker, seen wearing a shirt with MBI (Ipoh City Hall) Enforcement emblazoned on the back, shoots the dog, and as it lies writhing on the ground for a while, shoots it for the second time, before the dog slumps motionless on the ground.
The council workers appeared to ignore two women who were heard chastising them for their actions. It appeared that the two women and another neighbour had been feeding the stray dog.
The video was shot by a resident who was feeding the dog daily. She was heard chastising the council worker for not sparing the dog's life in spite of pleas to do so.
According to The Star Online, independent animal rescuer Joanne Low said that the action by Ipoh City Hall workers was "a clear propagation" of cruelty against dogs.
"It is creating an impression that it's okay to torture dogs.
"That is probably why we have people poisoning and torturing dogs," Low said, adding that killing stray dogs was a failed method to bring down their numbers.
"If the method is efficient, the number of street dogs should have decreased by now instead of increasing," she was quoted as saying by the English daily.
Following outrage by netizens condemning the actions of the council workers, MBI has issued a press release, saying it stands by the actions of their enforcement officers as they followed SOP
In the statement, which was uploaded on the Ipoh City Council's Facebook page, MBI defended the shooting and killing of the stray dog saying it received complaints of a “wild” dog which attacked a senior-ranking military officer and a pet goat.
MBI said that it sent its Dog Control Unit on 22 May to the Pengkalan Gate neighbourhood, Lahat, to kill the dog as part of its extermination of stray dogs policy.
"The team was brought there by a resident after getting a report that a stray dog had attacked a goat and army personnel.
"We got rid of one stray dog due to repeated complaints received and hope this matter is resolved once and for all," it said in the statement.
