On that fateful Friday morning, Akhil was on his way home to a hospital in Chalakka in Ernakulam to get a COVID RT-PCR test done. All of a sudden, he noticed a white sedan in front of him. There was something unusual about it. Behind the car was a rope to which was tied to the neck of a dog. It was a brown mongrel. While initially, the dog ran in a bid to match the car's pace, it fell down at a point and ended up getting dragged along, he noticed.
"I followed the car on my bike and caught the video of the cruelty on my phone while asking the driver to stop the car," says the 22-year-old. The video of the dog, now named Abakka, had gone viral a few weeks ago. "I told the driver that he will end up killing the dog, but he lashed out at me saying that it was none of my business. However, I got him to untie the dog," he says.
"As soon as I got the test done, I rushed to the spot where I found the dog, but she wasn't anywhere around. With the help of Krishnan, an animal rescuer, I found her from a nearby field," says Akhil, who later took Abakka to a veterinary hospital, along with Ashik and Krishnan. Akhil has never had a pet before. Neither did he ever identified himself as a dog person. "But it was a living thing in front of me, in so much pain. I had to do something to rescue her. Otherwise, what is the point of living?" he asks.
Akhil had also uploaded the video as his WhatsApp status. Based on the same, Akhil's friend Ashik Babu had filed a complaint with the police. The police had later arrested the car's driver who was on the verge of abandoning Abakka.
He says that Abakka was quite friendly. "She is a very sweet and well-mannered dog. I really wish I could adopt her," he says. While Ashik had suggested that they name the dog, Lucky, he says that Krishnan and his team had settled for Abakka. "She is under Krishnan's DAYA Animal Welfare Organisation's care right now, but now it looks like the chances of adopting her are slim. "We are yet to hear back from DAYA about the adoption status. It pains me to think that I won't get to take her home," says an emotional Akhil. At the same time, DAYA, in a statement said that Abakka is currently under treatment and hasn't healed from her injuries completely. "No decision on her adoption has made yet by the organisation as she is in the healing stage. We never give away animals for adoption without complete recovery," it reads.
