In a one-of-a-kind judgment on Tuesday, the Lahore High Court (LHC) ordered the post mortem of a pet cat in a case filed by a woman who claimed her vet had “murdered her cat”.
Moon, a male cat, was buried in the petitioner’s Karachi residence, and Justice Anwarul Haq on Tuesday ordered that the pet’s body be exhumed and a post mortem be carried out under the supervision of a judicial magistrate to determine its cause of death.
In May this year, petitioner Dr Atia Masood Chaudhry had requested that the court register a case under Section 429 of the Pakistan Penal Code for the alleged murder of her pet by one vet Dr Owais Anees.
Section 429 criminalises “mischief by killing or maiming cattle, etc of any value or any animal of the value of fifty rupees”.
Dr Masood, an assistant professor at the Punjab University, said her 18-month-old pet cat fell ill on January 18, after which she requested the vet to pay a house call to conduct a check-up for the feline.
Masood alleged she paid Anees Rs 6,000 per visit, but the vet charged Rs 25,000 for this particular visit. She said she paid him Rs 10,000, but Dr Anees insisted on her paying the additional Rs 15,000 during the check-up.
She alleged that after her refusal to pay the amount, he gave her cat five injections of Zintac and put the cat on a drip, after which the cat died.
Later in July, the court issued a notice to the Nawab Town station house officer (SHO), seeking a reply after the petitioner said the SHO was approached to register a case against the doctor but he refused to take action.