Resh­ma Ra­goonath

An­i­mal ac­tivist Nali­ni Di­al says Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) leader Prakash Ra­mad­har and the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment are fail­ing to ad­dress ram­pant an­i­mal abuse and a grow­ing stray dog pop­u­la­tion. Yes­ter­day Di­al made the com­ment while speak­ing with re­porters at a Trinidad and To­ba­go Ca­nine Ad­vo­cates' ral­ly at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do.

Di­al, head of An­i­mals are Hu­mans Too and a de­feat­ed COP lead­er­ship can­di­date, said while the Gov­ern­ment is fo­cused on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act, the stray dog pop­u­la­tion is grow­ing out of con­trol. She said she has con­tact­ed Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma, Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath and Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh to in­tro­duce ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes on car­ing for an­i­mals.

Di­al said the group even ap­proached Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. "No one has re­al­ly giv­en us a good re­sponse. We are wait­ing on them." She said they have ap­proached COP leader Ra­mad­har on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions hop­ing he would push it for­ward. "Noth­ing is hap­pen­ing yet and the stray pop­u­la­tion is out of con­trol now in Trinidad and To­ba­go," Di­al said.