Stray dogs to be put to sleep in Bangalore

Shaken out of its stupor after a pack of dogs mauled a nine-year-old girl to death, the Bangalore City Corporation has begun an elaborate exercise to eliminate violent, rabid and sick dogs in the City.

Virtually declaring a war against stray dogs, Karnataka’s Health Minister R Ashok told reporters that the Bangalore City Corporation officials have been instructed to round up violent and rabid stray dogs in the City and put them to sleep.

The operation began with the civic body deploying personnel and dog-catching vans in Chandra Layout in Bangalore, where nine-year-old Sreedevi was killed on Friday, and rounding up 30 dogs and eliminating them.

Ashok said Bangalore was home to an estimated 71,000 stray dogs. Out of the 13,419 cases of dog bites reported in Bangalore during the nine-month period from April 1, 2006 to December 31, 2006, as many as 7,875 had been attributed to stray dog. The rest were due to bites by domesticated dogs, he said.

“We are going all out against stray dogs. We will eliminate the violent and sick dogs. But, we have to leave out the healthy ones otherwise it will attract the wrath of animal rights’ activists”, he said.

However, Ashok expressed displeasure over the animal rights’ activists for doing little in the matter of dealing stray dog menace in Bangalore. Though the Bangalore City Corporation gave the animal rights’ NGOs the contract to deal with the stray dog menace, little progress has been made in the direction.

Alongside the operation to eliminate violent and sick stray dogs, the civic authorities have begun closing down illegal meat shops in different parts of the City for dumping waste in the open that was attracting stray dogs to flesh.

But an association called Stray Dog- Free Bangalore came down heavily on the Bangalore City Corporation for making meat stalls as the scapegoat for Friday’s horrendous incident. “The civic officials are neglecting their duties. Garbage lying around will not kill anybody unless dogs are allowed to roam freely”, said Vatsala Dhananjaya of the organization.