Fact Check: Army dogs are not killed after retirement, viral claim is misleading

New Delhi (Vishvas News): Vishvas News came across a reel being shared on Facebook which claimed that the dogs serving in the Indian Army are killed after their retirement, since they know all the locations inside. Vishvas News in its investigation found the claim to be misleading. The dogs serving in the Indian Army are not killed after retirement.

Claim:

Facebook user, Mom’s Ladla Parwej shared the reel and wrote: सेना के कुता को क्यू मार दी जाती है गोली। #viralreels #viralvideo #shorts #facts #FactsMatter #aloud

Translation: Why are Army dogs shot dead?

Check the post and its archive version here.

Investigation:

Vishvas News started its investigation with keyword search.

We found a story on website, yourstory.com that said, “In a shocking response to a right to information query, the Indian Army revealed that it euthanises (mercy kills) its dogs on retirement, or at any point when they are judged to be unfit for service beyond a month. This was reported in June 2015, by The Huffington Post. Less than a year later, there is good and life-saving news for the retired canine soldiers. Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain has submitted a declaration to the Delhi High Court, saying the government is working on a policy to stop euthanasia of Army dogs after retirement.“

Check the article here.

We also found a report on Indian Express website which mentioned, “There was an earlier practice of euthanizing Army dogs after they were no longer in active service. An RTI reply in 2015 giving out this information had caused a public uproar following which the policy was amended.“

In the next step of investigation we connected with Col Amod Kulkarni (Retd). He told us that euthanasia was a common practice around seven years back but was only done to dogs who were very ill. The dogs were not unnecessarily killed. However now even that option has been done away with and the dogs are sent to Meerut and are taken good care of or they are put up for adoption. The practice was also common for horses and mules first but now, even they are sent to Hempur in Uttarakhand.

In the last step of investigation, we did a social background check of Facebook user who shared the viral reel. Mom’s Ladla Parwek has 11K followers and is a YouTuber.