Karnataka Government declares war against stray dogs

In the face of heightened public fury over the horrendous manner in which a four-year-old boy was mauled to death in Bangalore by a pack of stray dogs, the State Government has decided to round up all the diseased and violent street dogs roaming the City and euthanise them over the next few weeks.

Karnataka’s Health Minister R Ashok told reporters in Bangalore that the civic authorities will take up the operation against street dogs on a war footing by catching atleast 1,200 dogs each day. “All dogs moving in packs, ferocious, rabid and those afflicted by diseases will be mercilessly put to sleep”, he declared.

Diseased and violent dogs will be put to sleep, but healthy dogs will be sterilized and put back where they had been found, he said.

Referring to a federal law that comes in the way of killing healthy dogs, Ashok said the Karnataka Government will shortly write a letter to the Federal Government to amend the existing Act, which does not permit the killing of dogs, and enable the civic authorities in Bangalore to check the menace of street dogs effectively.

Ashok expressed his dissatisfaction over the Animal Birth Control programme in which animal rights’ organizations had taken up the responsibility of sterilizing street dogs. “I am not happy with their work. Though the Government provides them with Rs 15 million every year for the purpose, only 3,000 dogs had been sterilized in a year. We will soon decide whether we need their services or not”, he said.

According to figures made available by the Animal Husbandry Department, there are more than 70,000 stray dogs in Bangalore. Despite the sterilization programme taken up by the animal rights’ activists, the population of street dogs continues to mushroom alarmingly in Bangalore.

Commissioner of Bangalore City Corporation K Jairaj told reporters that the civic authorities had identified 48 areas in Bangalore, where the population of street dogs is more. A total of eighteen vehicles had been drafted for capturing stray dogs, he said.

The animal rights’ activists came under fire from various sections of the society including the Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde for their failure to control the street dogs. He held the animal rights organizations responsible for the growth in population of stray dogs in Bangalore.
“We all hold some office and it is a shame that we should be watching helplessly as dogs maul children to death”, he said.