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Journalism of Courage
On Sunday (March 12), the news of two siblings being mauled to death by stray dogs in separate incidents in Delhi’s Vasant Kunj area sent shock waves across the city and brought to spotlight the stray dog menace.
In the recent past, there have been several incidents where stray dogs have attacked and even killed people.
The Animal Birth Control (Dog) Rule, 2001, deals with the population control of strays. It provides for the neutering of strays to achieve population stabilisation, as opposed to killing them. Improper implementation of this law is also seen as a major reason behind the growing menace of strays.
Here’s a brief look at some of such cases that happened in recent time.
In the above-mentioned case, the two siblings, aged five and seven respectively, were attacked in separate incidents in Delhi’s Ruchi Vihar and succumbed to injuries. Police said they have informed the local authorities about the deaths and the matter is being investigated.
Police added that they have written to the MCD to act against the dog menace. As per police, the MCD carried out a drive on Sunday afternoon and picked up 8-9 dogs from the area.
In February this year, Hyderabad saw two different cases of four-year-old children attacked by stray dogs, with one succumbing to injuries.
On February 19, a four-year-old boy identified as Pradeep passed away after he was mauled by a pack of street dogs in Hyderabad’s Amberpet, the police said. A video of the incident revealed that the boy was walking alone when he was attacked. After the incident, dog catchers of GHMC caught 33 dogs from the vicinity.
A few days after this, another four-year-old suffered severe injuries in a stray dog attack in Maruti Nagar, Chaitanyapuri. His life was saved due to the timely intervention by his mother, according to officials.
This led to Special Chief Secretary Arvind Kumar directing officials to pay special attention to control strays not only in the areas under GHMC but also in other municipalities. Apart from bolstering the sterilisation programme, Kumar instructed the officials to restrict the hotels, restaurants, function halls, and meat shops from dumping waste on the streets.
In October last year, a one-year-old child died due to injuries caused by a stray dog’s bite in a residential society in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida. The child’s parents, who are labourers, had been working on a road at the society, when the dog entered it.
After the incident, residents held a protest claiming that stray dogs are a persistent issue. Shweta Raj, a resident, claimed: “I have been living here for a year and every two-three months, there are similar dog-related incidents… I don’t feel safe sending my children out. Now there is an uproar because a child has died, but the problem isn’t new.”
Earlier this year in February, a two-year-old girl was attacked by four stray dogs outside her home in Gujarat’s Surat and rescued by some people when her migrant labourer parents were away at work. She later succumbed to her injuries.
New Civil Hospital Resident Medical Officer Dr Ketan Naik said, “When the girl was brought in, we saw blood coming out from different parts of her body. We put in all possible efforts and carried out a surgery on the scalp which had 10 cm by eight cm wounds. We also gave her antibiotics. Due to her age, the body might not have responded to the medicines and as a result, a multi-organ failure occurred probably due to a septic. We had kept her under observation and her blood pressure was being recorded but all our attempts failed.”
Talking to The Indian Express, Surat city Mayor Hemali Boghawala said, “We are taking all efforts to reduce the number of dog bite incidents in the city. We have also increased sterilisation of stray dogs from 30 dogs to 100 dogs each day and have also increased the number of cages from 60 to 200.”
A stray dog in Bihar’s Ara town went on a biting spree in January 2023, and attacked 70 people. Bhojpur Superintendent of Police Pramod Kumar said that the dog attacked 70 people in Shivganj, Shitla Tola, Mahadeva Road and Sadar Hospital areas.
Kerala saw a massive increase in dog bite cases in 2022, with several people dying due to rabies, including a 12-year-old girl who had been vaccinated, and was being treated at the Kottayam Medical College. In another case, a 19-year-old college student from Palakkad district also passed away from the disease, despite being vaccinated.
As a result, the Kerala High Court in September 2022 directed the state government to take steps to contain the incidents of dog bites while also saying that people must refrain from “inflicting unnecessary harm on stray dogs.”
The bench of A K Jayasankaran Nambiar and Gopinath R convened a special sitting, taking note of around two lakh incidents of dog bites in Kerala and 21 cases in which the victims died of rabies (as of September) that year.
In 2022, the problem of stray dogs and bite cases became widespread in Punjab’s Zirakpur, with as many as 190 cases being reported in a span of the last few months of the year. In one case, a 13-year-old boy was attacked by a pack of stray dogs, and seriously injured.
According to the doctors at Dhakoli, in October, 45 dog bite cases were reported in Zirakpur but in November a total of 145 cases were reported. A doctor who looks after dog bite cases at Dhakoli’s government hospital said that on average they record 30 to 40 dog bite cases per month but there has been an increase in the number of cases in October and November.
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