This article is authored by Sajid Hassan, Associate, Mahbub & Company.
Animal welfare in Bangladesh is drawing increasing public attention, not merely as headline news but as a reflection of deeper social and legal dysfunction. Though the country has laws meant to prevent cruelty and regulate the treatment of animals, heart-wrenching incidents continue to unfold sporadically, revealing enforcement gaps that mere outrage cannot close.
In early November 2025, the stark reality of this failure was laid bare in the Hydrabad area of Gazipur. A joint operation by the Gazipur District Administration, the Department of Livestock Services, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)-1 and police uncovered an underground horse-meat operation that had been running in secret for months. Officials found at least 37 horses in visibly diseased and malnourished conditions and eight that had already been slaughtered and processed for sale. Under the Animal Slaughtering and Meat Quality Control Act, 2011, horses are not permitted to be slaughtered for commercial purposes in Bangladesh. The fact that the animals were sick and the meat unfit for human consumption also raised serious concerns under the Food Safety Act, 2013, which prohibits the sale of contaminated or diseased meat. While Mobile Courts imposed fines and local authorities temporarily banned horse-meat sales, the episode exposed how such cruelty and illegality can persist without detection, raising questions about routine inspections of slaughterhouses and food supply chains.
Just weeks later, another story of cruelty ignited national outrage. In early December 2025, in Ishwardi, Pabna, eight newborn stray puppies were found drowned in a pond after being bound inside a sack. The heartbreaking visuals circulated widely on social media, depicting a mother dog wandering in distress, seeking her lost pups. The case led to a formal complaint being filed by the local livestock office under the Animal Welfare Act, 2019, which prohibits cruelty and inhumane killing of animals, along with relevant provisions of the Penal Code, 1860. The main accused was arrested. Yet the public response followed a familiar pattern— the tragedy will be remembered online for a few days and then forgotten, just like so many before it.
Indeed, cruelty toward animals is not confined to distant districts of Bangladesh. In Dhaka’s Mohammadpur area, repeated incidents have underscored the vulnerability of both stray and owned animals alike. Earlier in 2025, CCTV footage captured a person repeatedly kicking a defenceless cat, a scene that horrified viewers but also reflected a chilling reality, neighbours watched in silence, unsure how to intervene or whether filing a complaint was even an option. Meanwhile, a separate episode in late 2024 saw at least ten stray dogs and a cat die after being poisoned at the Japan Garden City housing complex in Mohammadpur. Police cases were filed with allegations that the poisoning was deliberate, but subsequent investigation reports found no evidence against several accused residents, prompting further legal action and challenges. These incidents illuminate how cruelty is not merely a rural problem but an urban one, and how even when legal complaints are filed, prosecutions can lag or falter.
These tragedies illustrate a prevalent issue, the laws exist, but enforcement and accountability lag far behind. The Animal Welfare Act of 2019 outlines penalties for cruelty and mandates humane treatment. Yet cruelty remains largely a bailable and non-cognizable offence, meaning police often hesitate to register cases, and most offences are resolved without meaningful consequences. Across Bangladesh, cruelty plays out quietly in alleyways, markets, residential complexes and on rural roads, often witnessed, sometimes recorded, but rarely prosecuted to a conclusion that prevents future offences.
Part of the problem lies in the structure of the legal system of Bangladesh itself. Stray animals, by definition, have no owner or identifiable legal guardian. As a result, they cannot be directly represented as litigants in ordinary civil or criminal proceedings. No individual can demonstrate a personal legal injury on behalf of a stray animal, leaving courts without the necessary procedural basis, locus standi, to act unless the case is framed as affecting the public interest at large. This is why Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has emerged as the only effective legal avenue for animal welfare: it reframes cruelty as a systemic failure of public authorities to enforce the law.
When animal welfare matters are brought to the High Court through PIL, the focus shifts from isolated cruelty to patterns of administrative neglect and unlawful inaction. Courts have intervened to restrain arbitrary actions, demand lawful procedures, and remind authorities that humane treatment is not optional. But judicial action cannot be the primary engine of reform, it can only step in where governance has failed.
What Bangladesh urgently needs is a shift from reactive shock to proactive action. This includes regular inspections under the Animal Slaughtering and Meat Quality Control Act, 2011, stricter enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act, 2019, regular inspections of slaughterhouses, vigorous coordination among municipal authorities, veterinary departments and public health agencies, humane management of stray animal populations through vaccination and sterilisation programs, and strong accountability for officials who ignore complaints or allow cruelty to go unaddressed.
Animal welfare is not a peripheral social issue; it is inseparable from public health, community compassion and the moral fabric of society. Each illegal slaughter unearthed, each litter of puppies lost, and each poisoned stray that never sees justice, tests the limits of a legal system and a society’s conscience. Unless systemic reforms are undertaken, and unless animal welfare is treated as a matter of legal responsibility rather than episodic indignation, these tragedies will continue and the voiceless will continue to suffer in silence long after the headlines fade.
