A pit bull mauled a child in Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Buddha Nagar district while the dog’s owner looked on. The incident took place in Badalpur village in the district’s Dadri tehsil on Friday.
In a video of the incident, now viral on social media, the ferocious pit bull can be seen mauling the child. Two women make repeated attempts to release the wailing child from the dog’s grip but fail.
All this while, the dog’s owner can be seen standing on his terrace. He does nothing to rescue the child.
Two men then attack the dog with a stick and a bat, forcing it to let go of the child. The wounded pit bull can then be seen strolling back to his owner’s home.
Noida Special Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Elamaran G said the police have taken cognizance of the viral video.
An FIR has been registered against three people in connection with the case.
Two of the three accused have been arrested and one is on the run, the ADCP added.
Pit bulls are not seen as house pets owing to their ferocious nature. While India does not have any breed-specific legislation against pit bulls, there are laws against keeping them as pets in parts of Europe.
A similar incident where a pit bull attacked a child was reported from Rajasthan’s Jaipur in June of last year.
As per reports of the incident, an 11-year-old child’s face was badly injured after his landlord’s dog – a pit bull – attacked the boy. The dog also inflicted serious injuries on the child’s neck, head and thighs.
Police in Jaipur had at the time registered a case against the pit bull’s owner under Section 289 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).