Punjab Police have arrested a man after a video showed him shooting his pet dog with a rifle, the Hindustan Times reported on Saturday. After the video went viral on Thursday, the police booked Satbir Singh, and his friend, but both of them were later released on bail.

Fauna Police, an animal rights organisation, had written an email to Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi, Punjab Director General of Police Sumedh Singh Saini, and the Animal Welfare Board of India about the incident. Following this, the police took action.

Satbir Singh claimed the animal was “unstable and imbalanced for the past two days” and thus had to be killed. “The dog was fiercely biting for the last two days. It had attacked my buffalo,” he told the newspaper. “It had become extremely dangerous to kids. Remember, it was my pet dog! Why will I kill my own dog?” However, he said he did not know who uploaded the video on social media.

The dog’s body was taken for autopsy to a veterinary hospital in Barnala. “We have taken samples of the dog’s liver, kidney, spleen and heart,” Dr Krishan Kumar, a member of the board of doctors constituted for the postmortem, said. “We will send its brain sample to Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University.”