Gurugram: A case of theft and illegal breeding has given new meaning to the phrase ‘smell a rat’ after 3,500 mice and 180 rats were stolen from a government-recognised small animal research and breeding facility in Haryana’s Jind district.
In an FIR, registered at Pillukhera Police Station, Rajesh Kumar, the owner of Rodent Research India Pvt Ltd in Dhatrath village, accused the manager Sunil Sharma of “unauthorised breeding and theft of research animals”.
Kumar, who resides about 90 km away in Kurukshetra, relied on Sharma to oversee daily operations. However, on 17 December, during a routine inspection, he discovered anomalies in his stock of small animals. Suspecting Sharma, Kumar installed CCTV cameras at the facility and uncovered the theft. They were being taken to an illegal breeding facility.
Rodent Research India is recognised by the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairying (MoFAHD) and supplies rats and mice to pharmaceutical companies and universities for research on drugs and vaccines.
“Unauthorised breeding and theft of research animals pose grave risks to public health and environmental safety,” he told ThePrint.
CCTV uncovers crime
According to the FIR, seen by ThePrint, on the night of 19 December, CCTV footage helped Kumar uncover the crime.
“On December 19, 2024, I stayed back in Dhatrath for personal work instead of returning to Kurukshetra,” he claimed, according to the FIR.
He kept an eye on the CCTV cameras. At 9.00 pm, the footage showed Sharma, with the help of labourers, unloading the feed sacks.
“I left for the animal house, monitoring the CCTV footage on my phone. At 9.52 pm, I saw the small truck leaving the premises, followed by Sunil Sharma on an Activa scooter. I followed them on my motorcycle. Near the SR Petrol Pump, I observed the small truck and the Activa parked, and a white Scorpio arrived,” he alleged in the complaint lodged with the police.
He said that supplies from the truck were transferred near a petrol pump to the other vehicle, which was driven by a man he identified as Sanjay Kumar, a visitor to his animal house and the owner of an unregistered animal house in Badoli.
According to Kumar, he received a call at 7.00 am the next morning from the driver of the truck, Vinay Suri, who reported the incident. “He told me that Sunil Sharma instructed him to deliver the 12 feed sacks to another vehicle (the Scorpio) claiming they were for a newly established animal house in Jind.”
The FIR further said, “Upon inspecting the stock at my animal house, I found that 12 feed bags were missing. Additionally, 3,500 mice and 180 rats were unaccounted for. I suspect that Sunil Sharma tampered with the facility’s records, took photographs of official documents, and sent them to Sanjay Kumar, who used them to fabricate fake documents for his unauthorised animal house.”
The Badoli-based facility run by Sanjay was operating without an approval from the Committee for the Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CCSEA), violating ethical and legal standards, according to the complaint mentioned in the FIR.
The local police registered an FIR under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Act, 2023, on 26 December.
Assistant Sub-Inspector Vinod Kumar told ThePrint that the police arrested Sunil Sharma Monday and he confessed to the crime.
Investigators are scrutinising CCTV footage and conducting searches to recover the stolen animals and feed.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)