Cat jumps off bike on Kolkata bridge, owner announces Rs 10,000 reward for missing pet
Times of India | 23 September 2024
KOLKATA: A reward of Rs 10,000 has been declared for a missing pet cat named Dustu. The cat had jumped off a moving two-wheeler on Bally Bridge on Sept 6.
Dustu was riding with her owner Rishita Shabui Majumdar and her husband, while Rishita was on her way home to Hatibagan. The feline slipped out of a basket and sprinted away while the two-wheeler was crossing the Bally bridge.
“I had rescued Dustu from the streets in mid-2022.Since then, she has been a part of our family,” said Majumdar, a homemaker and an animal lover. After losing Dustu, Majumdar has fallen sick while frantically searching for her cat for more than a week. But the search has yielded no result yet.
“I received seven calls in the last 16 days. People were showing me similar looking cats but none of them were Dustu,” said Majumdar. The 15-month-old Indian cat was bicolour with white-and-ash fur and had a black belt around her neck when she went missing.
A popular animal communicator based in south Kolkata has also been appointed to intensify the search process through postering and mid-night searches. Dustu’s family has combed through the streets in and around the Bally Bridge almost every day. The poster, highlighting Dustu’s details, has also been shared widely on social networking sites.
In lure of hefty monetary reward, many locals and even people from other parts have come to Dakshineswar Bridge in search of the cat.
Pappu Mondal (49) who runs a roadside tea shop near Dakshineswar railway station, and is a local, said, “I appointed three street children to search for the missing cat after seeing the poster in front of my shop.”
Pradyumna Chatterjee (46), a pet lover from Garia, also volunteered in the search operation, “Last Tuesday, I reached the bridge before dawn and searched till 10 am but failed,” he said.
“Finding a missing pet sometimes depends on the will of the animal,” said the animal communicator.