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Sharp spike in dog bite cases in Kashmir raises concern
Kashmir valley recorded 6,800 animal bite cases, over 5,700 (80%) stray dog bite cases, from April 1 last year to March 31, highest in the past three years prompting experts to question the delay in completion of much awaited animal birth control (ABC) centres in Srinagar city
Kashmir valley recorded 6,800 animal bite cases, over 5,700 (80%) stray dog bite cases, from April 1 last year to March 31, highest in the past three years prompting experts to question the delay in completion of much awaited animal birth control (ABC) centres in Srinagar city.
According to official data, during this period, 6,855 animal bite cases were treated at Anti-Rabies Clinic at Government Medical College (GMC), Srinagar’s Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital from across the valley, 4,912 of them from the city alone. In 2021-22, the number was 5,629, while it was 4,798 in 2020-21.
In the past six years, the Kashmir valley has witnessed 37,467 animal bite cases, 72% or 26,742 of them in Srinagar alone.
“Of the 6,855 animal bite cases treated at SMHS, around 5,700 were caused by dogs,” said Dr Mohammad Salim Khan, head of community medicine, GMC, Srinagar.
He said there have been regular complaints of dog bites particularly targeting young children and elderly in early morning or late evening hours when children go to tuitions and elderly to offer prayers.
Earlier this month, the valley was shocked after pictures of an 8-year-old boy from south Kashmir’s Awantipoa with dog bites and stitches all over his body and injuries even in his lungs became viral on social media. “What could be more horrendous and a human rights violation when a pack of 20 dogs tried to devour a young boy in Awantipora,” Khan said.
“We can’t find any area where stray dogs are not present. The concerned authorities need to speed up the sterilisation process of stray dogs. It should be around 100 sterilisations a day while on ground the operations happen in single digits at a single centre in Shuhama,” he said.
So far, only one centre operated by Srinagar Municipal Corporation(SMC) is functional in Srinagar’s Shuhama which has 50 kennels and where the authorities are able to sterilise just five to 10 dogs per day making miniscule impact to control the spiraling population of dogs particularly in the city which the officials put anywhere between 50,000 to 60,000.
The second centre in the valley at Tengpora with 210 kennel capacity and 60 sterilisations a day, should have been completed by 2020 but has been registering inordinate delays. Last year in September, the authorities had said the centre would be completed within a month but even after six months, the centre is yet to open.
Veterinary officer of Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) Dr Tawheed Najar said the centre at Tengpora was in ‘final stages’. “Only paint work and wiring is pending besides macadamisation of the road,” he said.
He said the menace of dog bites is a universal phenomenon. He said they were conducting around 10-12 sterilisations a day at Shuhama. “We also want mass sterilisation but that can happen after work on other centres is completed,” he said.
Stray dog menace has remained a persistent issue in Kashmir, particularly in capital Srinagar, where conservative estimates put the dog population around 60,000. With animal rights activists against culling of dogs, the animal birth control or sterilisation measures by SMC started in 2013 to control the dog population have not drawn any major results owing to the sluggishness of the efforts.
In April 2021, SMC authorities had said they would launch a massive time bound animal birth control programme to sterilise and vaccinate around 50,000 stray dogs within six months in accordance with the guidelines of Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) and the Animal Birth Control (Dog) Rules-2001. But that did not happen on the ground.
The SMC had also decided to outsource the work to an outside agency but that could only happen when the infrastructure for sterilisation was ready.
