Over the past ten days, many of us would have had the misfortune of seeing the video and learning about the poor dog that was thrown off a terrace by a medical student in Chennai, while an equally deranged chum of his filmed the incident to post on social media.

I didn’t watch the video and quite honestly, did my best to avoid learning details of what happened, but there was no escaping it since the video had gone viral and people everywhere were expressing their shock at what had happened.

For those of you who don’t know, let me first just tell you that the dog, Bhadra, a spunky, five-month-old Indian mixed breed, is ok, despite her fractured hip and is being nursed back to health by a team of vets and animal lovers. I reckon she’ll have a happy life ahead.

Now let me tell you a bit about the people who did this to her. These two men, mind you, were seeking to enter the medical profession, to be healers and life-savers. Their medical college, which had initially asked them to surrender themselves to the police or not be allowed to sit their exams, finally expelled them, a decision which I daresay was brought about by the public outcry and media attention.

This isn’t the first time that an incident like this has occurred. I am anguished at what we are becoming as a society, this sickening appetite for pain and suffering that people in our midst seem to have, which prompts them to perpetrate such new heights (or lows), of brutality as were seen in the 2010 Delhi rape case and in several animal-related incidents like a man hurling a dog against a parked car, leading up to this most recent one. It’s something that should deeply concern not just animal lovers but all of us. Are we developing a taste for unimaginable cruelty?

What could possibly prompt a person to do something like this? Are people that frustrated and desperate for a few Facebook ‘likes’ that they feel the need to come up with such heinous deeds for a little attention?

As of now, one is helpless to either teach these psychopaths a lesson they won’t forget or indeed to stop this social epidemic from spreading. For months, animal activists have been campaigning for the animal welfare laws in India to be revised. As of now, even the two medical students, whose crime to my mind was about as sadistic and brutal as they come, were remanded in to custody briefly and then promptly released on bail for the pitiful amount of Rs. 50, for which one can’t even get a cup of coffee at a good restaurant. That then, is the price of an animal’s life.

Oftentimes people react to such things by saying, “Well, what about human beings and their suffering?” to which I say, why can’t one be against cruelty towards all beings? People who commit such atrocities towards innocent animals pose a considerable threat to society. Who is to say the animal torturers of today won’t go on to becoming the rapists and killers of tomorrow? Which is why one doesn’t need to love animals to condemn such acts and demand befitting punishment for the culprits. I try to avoid either watching or sharing videos that I know are graphic and upsetting, partly out of fear that some other sick freak somewhere may draw inspiration from it. How sad is that? To not have enough faith in one’s society to believe that something which is intended to draw sympathy may not actually have the opposite effect?

If we are truly concerned about this societal malaise, and we really, really should be, then the next time we see an animal or a person being physically abused, let’s not just look the other way. Let’s pause to demand an explanation. Even something that simple is usually enough to deter a person. Let’s sign those campaigns that come our way, to get the government to make animal welfare laws stricter. And let’s pray for little Bhadra.