When Tahsina Amin’s second dog, Snowy, died, grief was not the hardest part. Finding a place to bury her was.
Years earlier, when her first dog Jenny had died, Tahsina’s father hired a mason to break through their concrete yard so the family could dig a grave. By the time Snowy passed away, however, there was no space left.
“My father actually cried because we couldn’t find a place to bury her.”
With no land available and no public pet graveyard, the family had no option but to call a municipal waste collector.
“They disposed of her body in a landfill along with other waste,” she says.
For Tahsina, the pain of losing Snowy was compounded by the knowledge that her beloved companion’s final resting place was a rubbish dump rather than a peaceful patch of earth.
Her experience reflects a growing problem in Dhaka. As pet ownership rises in Bangladesh, more families are discovering that finding a dignified resting place for their pets can be as distressing as the loss itself.
The capital has no known public designated burial ground and no official system for pet burials.
“Most people bury their cats and dogs in containers or drums,” Tahsina says. “Those who have the space, can bury them on their own property. Others spend hours searching for vacant land, only to be turned away by neighbours or security guards.”
On the off chance that some people quietly step up to help grieving pet owners, they are often reluctant to speak publicly.
Model Naila Nayem, who has previously shared on social media that she owns lands in Basila, Banasree, Gazipur and Savar where animals can be buried, declined to comment on the issue as she prefers not disclosing the exact locations of the pet graveyards.
Her reluctance reflects a broader social reality in which compassion towards animals is often met with ridicule, judgement and online abuse rather than understanding.
Samir Islam Nibir, a Canadian University student, says his family repeatedly faced obstacles while trying to bury animals.
Whenever one of their pets died, they searched for vacant land in their neighbourhood, hoping to give them a peaceful farewell. Instead, they were turned away.
“People behaved very badly,” Samir recalls. “They told us, ‘You can’t bury animals here.’”
He ended up burying one pet beside their building despite concerns about the potential health risks. On another occasion, he travelled to an unused patch of land near the second bridge at Hatirjheel Lake, only to be stopped by Ansar personnel, who said burials were not permitted there.
For Almeer Hazm, an A-Level student from Mohammadpur, the struggle began after his cat – a mother of four kittens – died from injuries sustained after being run over by a vehicle. Despite rushing her to two veterinary clinics, she succumbed to severe internal bleeding and multiple ruptured organs – a loss too deep to bear.
“I pleaded with many people and even cried, but no one could arrange anything. Some people even hung up the phone when I asked if they could help,” he says.
With nowhere left to turn, he and his sister wrapped her body in a cloth, covered it with polythene and left it behind.
“Even today, I feel I couldn’t do even this one final thing for her. I don’t think I’ll ever be free of that guilt.”
The absence of a pet graveyard is about more than a lack of urban infrastructure. It reflects a deeper problem: a society that has yet to fully recognise the value of animal life.
Few incidents exposed that reality more starkly than the alleged mass poisoning of stray dogs at Japan Garden City, a residential complex in Mohammadpur, in late 2024. There are allegations that at least 10 stray dogs and one resident cat were deliberately killed after poisoned food was scattered throughout the complex – an incident which sparked nationwide outrage, protests and legal proceedings under the Animal Welfare Act, 2019.
For many, however, the massacre was not an isolated act of brutality. It merely drew attention to a pattern of cruelty that unfolds across Bangladesh every day, often unnoticed and rarely punished.
In March this year, a Dhaka court sentenced Akbar Hossain Shiblu, a resident of Mohammadpur, to six months' imprisonment for brutally assaulting and killing a pet cat belonging to a neighbour.
Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Chief Health Officer Brig Gen Imrul Kayes believes Bangladesh remains a long way from becoming a society that genuinely respects animals.
“We are still nowhere near a stage where we can genuinely show mercy towards animals,” he says.
According to Imrul, videos showing dogs being drowned, cats having their throats slit and other acts of extreme cruelty regularly circulate on social media. He also points to incidents in which people are verbally abused or physically threatened simply for feeding stray cats and dogs.
To him, such incidents are not isolated but evidence of a culture where violence against animals has become disturbingly normalised.
Imrul argues that recognising the need for a pet graveyard is not about placing animals above people but about addressing a practical and humane necessity.
“Dhaka currently has no plans to establish a public pet graveyard but there is definitely a need for one,” he says, adding that the City Corporation would be willing to support a privately run graveyard or cemetery provided it posed no environmental or public health risks.
DNCC’s involvement is limited to providing operational space to animal welfare organisations like Obhoyaronno and Paw Friends, allowing the organisations to bury or dispose of animals that die while under their care. Such arrangements, Imrul says, benefit only a small number of animals and cannot replace a citywide service.
He is equally concerned by the lack of oversight in Bangladesh’s growing pet care sector.
Imrul recalls a painful experience involving one of his children’s kittens while he was posted outside Dhaka. The animal died after receiving several injections at a veterinary clinic in Gulshan. Although the clinic assured the family it would arrange a respectful burial, they later discovered that the kitten had simply been thrown into a nearby dustbin.
“If even veterinary clinics fail to treat dead animals with dignity,” he says, “it shows how much work we still have to do.”
When decomposing or infected animal bodies are not disposed of, it does not simply disappear. It becomes a biological waste.
Rakibul Amil, founder and chairperson of the People for Animal Welfare (PAW) Foundation, says that carcasses carrying infectious diseases can expose waste collectors, informal recyclers and landfill workers to dangerous pathogens. Scavenging animals and birds – including crows, kites and stray dogs – may also spread contaminated remains across surrounding areas, increasing the risk of disease transmission.
“This is one of the strongest arguments for creating designated burial grounds. The city desperately needs a soil-based solution,” he said.
“But where is the soil? There is no soil left in Dhaka. Everything has been paved over.”
The disappearance of open land has quietly transformed what was once a simple act of burial into an urban planning challenge.
Families increasingly find themselves choosing between unsafe informal burials, cremation or sending their pets to landfills – not because they prefer those options, but because no realistic alternative exists, he added.
For now, grieving pet owners in Dhaka have only one formal alternative – a crematorium.
Tucked inside the premises of Obhoyaronno – Bangladesh Animal Welfare Foundation (O-BAWF) is a modest 150-square-foot room housing what is currently the city’s only functional animal cremation unit.
Established in 2009, the organisation primarily focuses on stray dog sterilisation and rabies control. Over time, it also became the only place in Dhaka offering a structured way to handle the remains of companion animals.
“The charge for cremating a deceased dog or cat is 3,000 taka per animal,” says Dr Mehdi Hassan Saki, a veterinary surgeon with the organisation. “We do not have any separate arrangement for those who wish to bury their pets.”
The gas-powered incinerator reduces an animal’s body to ashes over 30 to 60 minutes, depending on its size.
Despite serving a city of more than 20 million people, the facility carries out only 3 to 5 cremations a month, averaging 40 to 60 annually.
Owners must transport the bodies themselves because no collection service exists, while cremations are conducted only during office hours. The operation is also heavily dependent on a reliable gas supply.
Mehdi says the cost of cremation puts it beyond the reach of many pet owners, despite it being the most environmentally responsible way to dispose of animal remains.
Yet for many families, the greatest obstacle is not practical but emotional.
For Rakibul, cremation does not offer the same sense of closure as burial to many.
He believes the debate extends beyond science and environmental considerations.
“For hundreds of years, cremation has been a religious practice in certain faiths. In those traditions, it is both culturally and religiously accepted. On the other hand, for people who are accustomed to burial, cremation can be deeply distressing on an emotional level. As a result, both methods are important. This is not merely a matter of health, science, or logic—it is also an extremely sensitive issue shaped by cultural and religious traditions”, Amil said.
Rubaiya Ahmad, founder of Obhoyaronno, prefers the idea of crematorium as it is “eco-friendly and energy efficient”, yet she thinks people should have choices.
“We need options to dispose of the bodies responsibly and humanely once an animal has passed on”, she said.
Bangladesh’s legal framework for animal welfare is stronger than many realise.
The Animal Welfare Act, 2019, which replaced the colonial-era Cruelty to Animals Act of 1920, prohibits the killing, poisoning, maiming and cruel confinement of animals, as well as the unauthorised relocation of both domestic and stray animals. It also bans the practice of capturing and abandoning street dogs in remote areas.
Yet despite these legal safeguards, enforcement remains the weakest link.
Municipal authorities are primarily responsible for rabies control and removing animals that pose an immediate public health risk. Beyond that, however, there is no specialised animal welfare unit, no independent authority to regulate veterinary clinics and no dedicated agency to investigate cruelty or prosecute offenders.
Imrul describes the 2019 Act as “an extraordinary law” but says legislation alone cannot protect animals.
The absence of digital infrastructure further weakens the system.
“Death certificates are not maintained, pets are not microchipped, and there is no central database to identify them.”
Unlike many developed countries, Bangladesh has no nationwide pet registration or microchipping system, making it difficult to trace ownership or establish accountability when animals are abused, abandoned or improperly disposed of.
Reliable data are also scarce. The last official survey of stray dogs, conducted jointly by Obhoyaronno and DNCC in 2021, estimated the population at around 70,000. No official count has been carried out since, despite a growing population of both stray and companion animals.
The idea of a pet graveyard or cemetery is nothing unique. Archaeologists have uncovered pet cemeteries dating back nearly 2,000 years in Egypt and Israel. Today, dedicated pet cemeteries are commonplace across Europe, North America and many parts of Asia.
Pet owners and animal welfare activists argue that city corporations should allocate a modest section of public land – or a corner of existing parks – for companion animal burials, supported by clear environmental guidelines and proper record-keeping.
Such a system, they say, would serve not only grieving families but also improve public health and strengthen responsible urban planning.
They even expressed their optimism for state intervention, saying as Prime Minister Tarique Rahman himself is an animal-lover, there is a scope for addressing these issues for better care for animals.
For Tahsina, the issue has never been about choosing animals over people.
It is about recognising that grief does not depend on species.
“If the government introduced an official burial system for dogs and cats, people would have confidence in it,” she says. “At a time when hostility towards animals is increasing, strengthening animal welfare laws, creating a central database and allocating dedicated burial grounds would send a strong message from the government.”
A pet graveyard will not, on its own, end cruelty or transform Bangladesh’s animal welfare landscape.
But it would acknowledge something thousands of families already know: the animals that waited by the door, curled up at the foot of the bed or grew old beside them were never “just pets.”