Goat ‘arrested’ for grazing on DM’s lawn, gets ‘bail’

A “repeat offender” goat had to spend a night in police custody after being “arrested” on Monday at the district headquarters town of Korea in Chhattisgarh for grazing on the local magistrate’s lawn.

The goat, along with its owner Abdul Hassan, was on Tuesday produced before local first class magistrate P.K. Das who granted them bail, investigating officer and Janakpur police station in-charge Rajendra Prasad Srivastav told this newspaper.

Interestingly, sympathies poured for the “poor animal” on social media with netizens pleading for mercy for the “hapless” goat from the court during the hearing of the case.

Earlier on Monday, the police rounded up the goat and its owner on charges of trespassing and criminal mischief following a complaint lodged by Korea district magistrate Hemant Ratre’s gardener Rajesh Paikre.

“The goat was a habitual trespasser in the judge’s bungalow and used to graze on the lawn and eat the vegetables raised in the garden. The peon who tends the lawns and the vegetable garden had several times in the past warned the goat’s owner to restrain the animal. He filed the complaint when the goat again scaled the iron gate of the bungalow and strayed into the lawn on Monday,” Mr Srivastav said.

Both of them were booked under Sections 447 (trespassing) and 427 (criminal mischief causing damage) of the IPC, which attract imprisonment for two to seven years.