'Have you seen my babies?'

The video is gut-wrenching. A mother dog, udders swollen with milk, running around at Ishwardi Upazila Parishad compound. She can't find her eight pups, who were born just days ago.

Her cries have no words. But it carries the universal grief of a mother who has lost her newborns. Her gasps and whines pierce the heart.

The tragedy unfurled on Sunday when the puppies could not be found. For almost two days, the mother never stopped searching.

On Monday morning, she was still running around, desperate to nurse her pups. Witnesses saw her darting from building to building, climbing stairs, and sniffing corridors. As if she were asking, "Have you seen my babies?"

The puppies were eventually discovered stuffed inside a sack that had been submerged in a pond. Only then did the mother dog's frantic search come to an end. Photos and videos of her curled up beside the wet, lifeless bodies of her puppies soon spread across social media, unleashing outrage from viewers.

In the face of mounting public fury, the accused -- identified as the wife of a government official -- told news outlets that she "would never harm animals" and had only left the sack under a tree to protect her children from disease. She went so far as to suggest that the puppies themselves may have rolled the sack into the pond.

It is a claim that defies all logic. Eight days-old puppies are incapable of such a thing.

As a society, we often pride ourselves on resilience, culture, and progress. But what truly measures civilisation? The height of our buildings -- or our humanity toward the beings who share our world?

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The image of that mother dog has become a mirror, reflecting a troubling rot in our collective conscience, where for some, the life of a stray counts far less than the comfort of a spotless backyard.

The administration moved swiftly, cancelling the housing allotment of the accused's family. A case has been filed under the Animal Welfare Act, and the woman was arrested last night.

This is not an isolated incident. From the poisoning of dogs in Japan Garden City to the brutal killing of a cat in Bogura, a disturbing pattern is emerging. A segment of our society still does not see stray animals as living beings deserving of compassion and basic kindness.

And if such cruelty no longer moves us, then perhaps it wasn't only the puppies that died. A part of our humanity did too.