Bunty Mahajan
Jammu: Getting just Rs 9,706 they get as monthly relief from the Central government, a Kashmiri Pandit migrant family of three here have sold all their valuables to feed 320 dogs, most of whom are abandoned by their rich owners.
Of the five rooms in a pucca building at village Hakkal on the outskirts of Jammu city, the family – Rajinder Hakhoo, 65, his wife Urmila, 60, and daughter Namrata, 41, have plenty of space to live comfortably. However, they live in only a 10×10 common room with a small kitchen as others have been occupied by dogs and other animals which were once owned by their rich and influential masters.
As the room can adjust only a small bed, Namrata sleeps on the floor. “We have an air-conditioner in the other room but we cannot run it as Pitbul in the adjoining room will face warm air,’’ said Namrata Hakhoo.
There are eight dogs in a small constructed room on the first floor and every one of them has its own issue. One of them is a Pug and she is irritated as to why others have been brought there, she said, adding one of the dogs there does not have a leg.
The family has other five rooms in a structure built across the boundary wall of the house and these are all occupied by animals who are paralysed and wounded. Of them, is a bull and a pig with only three legs. “We have recently constructed a small room for pups and piglets,’’ she said, adding the three rooms have animals whose condition is extremely critical.
In total, the family today has now 326 animals and nearly 200 of them are still without roof shelter. They stay in the open and when it rains, they take shelter inside our two washrooms, she said, adding that except for two monkeys and two cats, all others are dogs.
Many of them need surgeries, or medical treatment from doctors. To feed such a huge army of animals and, taking care of their medical needs in the absence of any aid from either the government, or the people who left their pets with them, the family has sold all their valuables except the house, Namrata said. It started with the sale of a gold chain by her in 2016 to a renowned jeweler from whom she had purchased it. Recently, her mother Urmila Hakhoo sold her ear studs so as to arrange food for these animals.
However, with their assets getting depleted with each passing day, the situation is getting worse for them.
Her brother, who used to live with them, is now living separately along with his wife and children. “There were lot of animals in the house and he could not like the atmosphere as after marriage, he had his own family including kids and their safety was the prime concern,’’ she added.
Namrata’s father Rajinder Hakhoo along with his family migrated from Kashmir’s Changpora Government Housing Colony to Jammu in 1989. Namrata was hardly 9 then. Her father purchased 3 kanal and 10 marla (18,970 sq ft) land at village Hakkal in 1976 and constructed a house on it in 1989. As there was no boundary wall till 1996, stray dogs in the locality used to move around in the backyard of our house, Namrata recalled, adding their number grew to nearly 40-50 as her mother regularly started preparing food for them from 1993.
Recalling family’s attachment with the animals, she recalled that it started when they brought the first dog “Bravo’’ home in 1992. Next year, someone gifted her younger brother a pup and he brought him also home. “We named him Benz,’’ she added.
Everything was running smoothly till 2016 as Namrata too used to earn Rs 40,000-50,000 from a computer centre she had opened at Ranbir Market in 2012. Earlier, her father used to earn handsomely by working as a commission agent for Jammu based hardware dealers supplying goods to traders in Kashmir Valley. “However, I had to close it as the two females working as domestic help left the job and mother was left alone to take care of the dogs whose numbers had by then swelled to nearly 100,’’ she said.
However, all these 326 animals have been picket by Namrata and her family from the roads. “I have hardly brought 80 found injured on the roads,’’ she said, adding that rest have been left here with the rich and influential people with a requests to take care of their dog for 2-3 days, or some other pretext. “A number of them abandoned their pets near our door without our knowledge and we had to adopt them as local dogs in the street would have killed them,’’ she added.
A Doberman was left with us in 2019 by a well known family of Jammu as they would be unable to take care of it in the absence of their only son who was going abroad for pilot’s training. Another was pushed inside our door by a lady and her son saying it is furious and so they won’t keep it, Namrata said, adding that when we refuse to accept any dog, the people argue with us asking how we can do so with them when we already have so many in our house.
Even those who had left their pets with us never came back to us even once, Namrata said, adding that many of them have even blocked her their mobile phones and internet account. “Normally jewelers feel happy when one visits them to buy or sell any gold ornament, but a well known jeweler used to get emotional on seeing me,’’ Namrata recalled, adding he often asked as to why we are selling our valueables?
Keeping in view the increasing number of animals at their house, Hakhoo family following advise by some friends formed a Hakhoo Street Animals Trust in 2018 in the hope to get some help from government and private individuals in maintaining these dogs. However, while no help came from any quarter despite Namrata continuously sending mails to everybody, people started forcibly leaving their pets at their doors as there had been a Trust meant for the welfare of animals.
The family now has a debt of nearly Rs 6 lakh which had accumulated on account of bills of feed and medicines it had bought from market for the animals. “Don’t you think that these animals too have a right to have some shelter and food like humans,’’ she asks when one suggests her to leave these animals back on the road.