A packed press conference of about 200 — half of whom were reporters and cat owners while the other half were enraged animal lovers — saw emotional calls for the two owners of Petknode to be locked behind bars, fined and sued.
“The reason you are here is because of animal cruelty. We want them in jail for the maximum six-month sentence,” said Christine Chin, chairman of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), to cheers and applause.
She added that the Animal Act also provided for a fine of RM200 for animal cruelty but called on the cat owners to “push for RM200 per cat. After all, that is at least what they made over the week.”
However, she said that the Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) had said that they are leaving the case to the police, who have classified it as a case of cheating rather than animal cruelty.
Most of the pet owners began to break down in tears as Bazilah Bahrin, from Kucing Terbiar Anjing Jalanan (KTAJ), recounted how close to 100 cats were saved from the boarding centre in Damansara Damai yesterday morning.
“They were covered in [faeces] and [urine]. When we gave them water, they drank like they have never drunk water before. How sick is the person who did this?” she said after being given a hero’s welcome for leading the rescue effort.
Choking back tears, Bazilah also clarified that it was a group of 20 to 30 pet owners, who arrived soon after, which collectively decided to break into the premise and not the police as reported earlier today.
“The police said they could not do anything and told us ‘if you want to break, just break.’ In the premise, we could hear cats mewing. We took the risk to break into the premises,” she said to another round of applause.
She also said that she had received threats from the Petknode operators who said “they will sue the pet owners who broke into their premises. But they don’t know who they are dealing with. There are just two of them and how many of us?”
Some of those who shared her anger also spoke out, stating that Yushairi and Shahrul had been detained at the Damansara Damai police station. Led by Chin, they left immediately after the press conference to confront the duo there.
Rescue workers had said that the Petknode owners were questioned by police yesterday but released after a few hours.
Cat owners in the city had left their pets with Petknode ahead of the “balik kampong” exodus for a promotional price of just RM3.95 a night. Although around 150 were rescued from two of Petknode’s boarding centres, animal rights groups here said that they feared another 100 were still locked away in another as-yet undetermined premise.
The animal lovers in the room were also encouraged to sign a petition to the prime minister calling for punishment in animal cruelty cases to be increased to a fine of up to RM10,000 and a mandatory jail sentence. The petition also included a call for stricter enforcement by the DVS, which the SPCA said had only prosecuted five cruelty cases in the last decade.
