Karnataka Governor concerned over mass killing of dogs in Bangalore

Expressing serious concern over the mass and indiscriminate culling of street dogs in Bangalore, Karnataka Governor T N Chaturvedi has shot off a strongly-worded letter to Chief Minister H D Kumarswamy asking the Government to adopt a more scientific approach to the deal with street dog menace.

In the letter, copies of which were released to the media, Chaturvedi described the move by municipal authorities of Bangalore as well as Mysore to kill the street dogs as “knee-jerk reaction”. “As in human beings, population control is a long-term process, but the beginning has to be steady, imaginative, sustained and adequately monitored”, he said.

He said it was “churlish” to pitch the matter as between the value of life of human beings and dogs. “All life is precious and there should be harmony and balance in nature”, he said virtually ticking off the State Government for its perceived over-drive to kill stray dogs in Bangalore after they mauled two children.

Meanwhile, the criticism against elimination of stray dogs in Bangalore by animal rights activists has virtually choked the flow of information on the municipal authorities drive against street dogs. “We have been told not to reveal how many dogs we had caught because questions have been raised about the manner in which we are going about it”, said an official in the Bangalore City Corporation.

But, a Division Bench of Karnataka High Court comprising Chief Justice Cyriac Joseph has taken a serious note of the stray dog menace in Bangalore and urged the Corporation authorities to explain the steps it had taken to control the population of street dogs in Bangalore. The court has also sought to know where the money spent by the civic body on controlling the stray dog population went.

“We cannot have dogs on the roads, unattended. Has anybody got a right to unleash them on public roads? If NGOs are against killing of digs, they should take care of the dogs”, said the Chief Justice while hearing a petition filed by a resident of Bangalore seeking effective measures to check the stray dog population in the City.