Mumbai: An Instagram reel by actor Manjari Fadnnis about the suspected killing of Mikey, a community dog at her housing society, has sparked outrage on social media and renewed calls for animal safety.
For nearly six years, Mikey was part of the daily life at Raheja Exotica, a luxury township at Madh Island in Mumbai. He lived and slept inside the society, around the security guards. He was allegedly brutally beaten up, stuffed into a gunny bag while half dead and thrown over the compound wall in the early hours of 27 May.
An FIR registered at Malvani police station on 6 June states that the complainant, actor and fellow resident Sanket Kadam, reported that Mikey, an approximately eight-year-old community dog, had gone missing from Raheja Exotica. Kadam stated that the residents regularly fed Mikey and looked after his vaccinations.
The FIR, accessed by ThePrint, has been registered against an unnamed accused under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Sections 325 (animal cruelty) and 238 (evidence tampering), and provision 11(1) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.
According to the FIR, Kadam learnt on 29 May that Mikey had not been seen in the society. Residents searched the premises but could not find him. The FIR states that residents later learnt from housekeeping staff that Mikey had been beaten, killed, and his remains discarded.
The FIR also records Kadam’s allegation that when residents tried to check the society’s CCTV footage, members from the management and society staff informed them that the footage had been formatted and refused to show it to them.
“When Mikey was nowhere to be found, I asked Sudesh Malik, secretary of the housing society, and the housekeeping staff about his whereabouts but they gave us casual responses. I then asked the society manager, Ram Kanojia, and housekeeping supervisor, Karan, for the CCTV footage. They told us the footage had been formatted and denied access to it,” the FIR states.
In it, Kadam also alleged that the society’s management and housekeeping staff had previously attempted to push Mikey out of the society. “The secretary and housekeeping staff of our society did not want Mikey in the society and had made several attempts to remove him,” he states.
A police official at Malvani police station told ThePrint that the search is ongoing, and the DVR of the CCTV has been submitted to the forensics team for analysis. “We are checking for any manual CCTV tampering at the moment. The forensic team is trying to retrieve the footage. The investigation is still ongoing.”
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Who was Mikey?
“Mikey suddenly came to the society around either 2019 or 2020,” Fadnnis told ThePrint. “Initially it felt like he was lost or like his family had abandoned him. He was also little at the time and was like a lost child in this new place. Slowly, a lot of us out here started becoming friends with him, and he soon became an integral part of our society.”
Punita Chaudhary, a fellow resident who owns a pet bakery in the city, told ThePrint that on 9 May, the watchmen of the society were seen aggressively chasing Mikey.
“We noticed one day that the watchmen were aggressively chasing Mikey. It wasn’t just about not allowing him in certain areas, it was aggressive chasing,” she said.
But the residents, Chaudhary said, were all friendly with Mikey and the other dogs living in the society. “Most people here are pet lovers with family dogs. For us, the community dogs were an extension of our dogs, and we all have a relationship with them.”
Fadnnis remembers seeing Mikey last around 24 and 25 May. On 27 May, she noticed that he was not at his usual spot. “I remember on the 27th, when I was leaving. I didn’t see him. When I came back home that night around 10.30 pm, I didn’t see him. I even asked the guards, where is Mikey? They said, we don’t know.”
By 29 May, she began to worry. “I again didn’t see Mikey that entire day. Then I started getting a little worried. I started walking around in the B2 area, calling his name. I asked the guards, did you see Mikey? Nobody had seen him.”
She then approached Kadam, who told ThePrint that a search party of 20-30 people started looking for Mikey in the entire Raheja Exotica township. On 1 June, he approached the police with a missing complaint.
“Mickey was a reserved dog who would keep to himself. He was never known to run away. Initially, we just thought he was lost, so we filed a missing complaint with suspicion of foul play but only that he might have been transferred to some other place,” he said.
Around 3 June, Fadnnis contacted Xavier Santiago, an animal welfare activist associated with YODA (Youth Organization in Defense of Animals), a non-profit rehabilitation centre in Mumbai focused on rescuing and rehabilitating stray, abandoned and abused dogs and cats. Santiago is also registered with the Animal Welfare Board of India.
What search uncovered
Santiago told ThePrint that the case was initially treated as that of a missing dog, with searches at ABC (Animal Birth Control) centres and through animal welfare networks. But the searches yielded nothing.
According to Santiago, things changed on 4 June when residents and activists came across a person who claimed to know what had happened.
“On 4 June, while investigating this matter, trying to talk to people, security guards and watchmen, we came across one person who hinted that he knew what had happened,” he said. “He was the one who led us to understand that Mikey had not been relocated, and he did not go missing, but that he was brutally murdered.”
He said the person claimed to have heard the account from a housekeeping staffer allegedly involved in the act. According to Santiago, the person named the housekeeping employee as the prime suspect.
Santiago said the allegation is that one Vaibhav Kohli entered the society in the early hours of 27 May, when he had no work-related reason to be there.
“According to the person, Vaibhav entered the society in the early hours of the day, between 2 am to 6 am. He found Mikey sleeping in one corner of the society where he would always be sleeping,” Santiago said.
“Mikey may not have reacted or run away because this housekeeping staff had been working there for a long time now. So, Mikey knew that person. That is why Mikey didn’t react.”
According to the person’s account shared by Santiago, Mikey was first allegedly beaten with an object. “What exactly was used, whether it was a stick or an iron rod, is not known, but it was something that was used to beat him with the intention of killing him. The person said Mickey may have suffered injuries on his jaw, but he was not dead.”
Santiago said that, according to the person, “while Mikey was half dead, he (the main accused) put him in a gunny bag and threw him over a compound wall of the society where there is a nala, a dumping area of sorts. After throwing him, that man left from there.”
After the account surfaced, Santiago said he went to Malvani police station and met senior inspector Shailendra Nagarkar. Four suspects were picked up for questioning on 5 June, he said, but they denied involvement. The FIR was registered by Kadam the following day.
‘Cameras disabled’
Santiago alleged that the residents initially had difficulty accessing CCTV footage. “By that time, we did not have any evidence, because till such time, the secretary, Sudesh Malik, was not compliant. He was not giving us CCTV access and was not allowing his housekeeping or security staff to even interact with us,” he said.
ThePrint has reached out to Malik with a message on his social media account. This report will be updated if and when he responds.
According to Santiago, when a technician was brought in to retrieve the data, the cameras covering the alleged scene of the crime were not recording.
“When the technician was trying to retrieve the data, we found out that that particular day, the camera was manually deactivated. The spot where the crime happened had three or four cameras, and exactly those were not working.”
“When I asked the technician why the cameras were not working, he said someone had manually removed the pin and formatted the hard drive,” he added.
Following the FIR, Santiago said the police retrieved DVRs and hard disks from the relevant cameras and sent them for forensic examination.
On 7 June, a mobile forensic team and a crime detection unit also visited the society and collected samples from a spot where residents believed there may have been traces of blood.
For residents and animal welfare activists, however, the case has already moved beyond one missing dog.
Fadnnis said residents want accountability not only for Mikey but also revised animal cruelty laws in the country.
“I really hope we can get his killers sentenced and henceforth manage to get the animal cruelty laws changed for the better… so that nobody has the guts to touch or hurt any animal,” she told ThePrint.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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