India tightens rules as stray dog problem gets out of hand, animal welfare groups seek govt help
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NEW DELHI – Children play with an improvised football devised from discarded polythene bags, their shouts competing with the recurrent din of aircraft flying low from the nearby airport in Delhi. Two pet rabbits prance around in the open space.
This scene in Singhi Basti is not what one expects in the fallout of the gruesome deaths of two very young brothers at this poor and lower-middle-class neighbourhood in India’s capital, New Delhi.
Anand, seven, and Aditya, five, whose family uses only first names, were allegedly killed by stray dogs in quick succession on March 10 and 12.
The older boy was mauled to death while passing through a neighbouring field and his brother died after reportedly being attacked by stray dogs when he went to relieve himself in the same field. The post-mortem blamed “canine bite injuries” for their deaths.
Even though locals, including the victims’ mother, told The Straits Times that nobody had seen dogs attack the boys, these deaths have renewed the focus on fatal attacks by stray dogs in the country.
They are worryingly frequent, bolstered by poor rates of sterilisation and vaccination, as well as improper disposal of garbage that these animals feed on.
While doubts may linger about whether some of these incidents did happen, those caught on camera leave no doubt about the severity of the stray dog problem.
In February, a pack of stray dogs bit a four-year-old boy to death in Hyderabad, the capital of the southern state of Telangana. It was captured by a closed-circuit television camera.
In the same month, a month-old child, sleeping next to his mother at a government hospital in Sirohi in the northern state of Rajasthan, was taken away by a stray dog – the act was also captured on a CCTV camera – and later killed.
As the conflict between people and stray dogs crosses the tolerance threshold, unwarranted brutal attacks on street dogs and pups by humans have also risen, as have calls, including from the authorities, to cull these animals.
Dog feeders and caregivers have come under criticism too for “aggravating” the problem.
Sushma lost two of her sons, Anand and Aditya to alleged attacks by stray dogs on March 10 and 12 in Delhi. She is standing next to the spot where Aditya was found barely alive.
ST PHOTO: DEBARSHI DASGUPTA
It is not just humans who are under threat from the dogs. In Ladakh, in the north of the country, feral dogs are responsible for killing rare wildlife species, including one filmed instance of them killing a snow leopard in 2018.
The estimated number of stray dogs in the country ranges from around 15 million to as many as 62 million.
Not surprisingly, India also has the dubious distinction of registering the most deaths from rabies in the world, killing around 20,000 Indians annually. The country recorded more than 15.5 million instances of stray dog bites between 2019 and November 2022, according to government data.
The Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules, introduced in 2001, require local municipalities, with the participation of animal welfare organisations and private individuals, to sterilise and immunise street dogs. But progress has been slow, with local bodies riddled with corruption and inefficiency.
“Twenty-two years is a long time to sterilise the entire dog population of the city (Delhi) and had the rules been effectively implemented, we would hardly see any dogs on the roads today,” said Ms Radhika Suryavanshi, campaigns manager at Peta India, a branch of global non-government organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
The rules were strengthened in March. Among the many changes are specific directions assigning responsibility to resident welfare associations on feeding “community animals” such as stray dogs.
Implementation of these enhanced rules, however, will continue to be a challenge, given limited funds and infrastructure, besides poor coordination among the multiple agencies involved.
“The government is incapable of vaccinating, deworming and sterilising every street dog because it just does not have the necessary infrastructure,” said Mr Sanjay Mohapatra, founder of the non-profit House of Stray Animals.
Since the attacks in Singhi Basti, the organisation has been vaccinating stray dogs in the area, as well as sensitising locals on how to “peacefully co-exist” with these animals.
According to him, the area is home to around 130 stray dogs, with only about 75 of them sterilised. Many fearful locals have demanded that the dogs be removed from the area.
But Mr Mohapatra said such a demand is unfair.
“Even if the brothers’ deaths were caused by dogs, can we blame all dogs there?
“When humans rape and murder, do we blame all humans?” he told ST, stressing the need for community kitchens to feed stray dogs and public sensitisation, along with effective sterilisation and vaccination programmes.
“Animal lovers also need government and public support to minimise conflict between humans and these animals,” he added.
Many animal lovers feed stray dogs in their area but there are those who say this aggravates the problem of attacks on humans by these strays.
ST PHOTO: DEBARSHI DASGUPTA
But finding the money needed to sterilise millions of stray dogs is a tall order – especially in a country where public health infrastructure is still inadequate – with each process costing between 1,000 rupees (S$16) and 1,500 rupees.
Dr Abi Tamim Vanak, a senior fellow at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, wrote in a March 21 article for The Indian Express that while individuals feed strays, they do not take “direct responsibility” for the animals, leaving it to the state to ensure that the lives of humans are safe and secure.
“The only long-term solution”, he added, “is to implement strict pet ownership laws, prohibit people from carelessly feeding dogs everywhere and set up facilities funded by animal welfare organisations that can either house dogs for life, or humanely euthanise them, so they don’t suffer on the streets.”
