The Panchayat said that stray dog bites and road accidents due to collisions with dogs rose rapidly in its limits despite all efforts.
A pack of stray dogs. (iStock)
As the Kerala government girdles up again for a legal fight to seek humane ways to deal with the stray dog menace in the state, the Kannur District Panchayath has independently filed a petition with the Supreme Court seeking permission to euthanise feral canines.
The panchayat stated in its plea, on 19 June, that in its jurisdiction, stray dog bites and road accidents due to collisions with dogs have increased rapidly despite it doing everything in its power.
On 11 June, an 11-year-old differently-abled boy named Nihal was attacked by stray dogs in the Muzhappilangad area of Kannur and died due to the grievous injuries sustained in the incident.
Following the incident, there was severe criticism of the government from various quarters, prompting it to blame Central legislation for not being able to effectively deal with aggressive vagrant canines.
Last week, in the wake of increasing reports of stray dog attacks on people, including Nihal’s death, in Kerala, the state government said it would move the apex court — yet again — seeking changes in the rules on dealing with vagrant canines.
In October last year, the Supreme Court of India had rejected Kerala’s plea that local self-governments in the state be allowed to deal with aggressive stray dogs.
There were two incidents of canine attacks against children reported in the Kannur and Kollam districts of Kerala on Monday, 19 June, the day the Kannur panchayath moved the apex court.
In Kollam, a stray dog attacked students right outside their school. The dog attacked the students in the afternoon as they were leaving the school for the day.
Visuals of the incident showed the dog running into a group of students and biting one of them, who fell on the ground and tried to kick the canine away.
After another set of students threw their bags and stones at it, the dog ran away.
Several students could be seen running helter-skelter in panic when they saw the dog attacking one of them.
The second incident occurred in the Edakkad area of Kannur, near where Nihal died after being attacked by dogs.
In this incident, a small schoolgirl was attacked and bitten by stray canines. Fortunately, the injuries caused to the girl were not serious.
In its plea in the Supreme Court, the Kannur District Panchayath said there had been 5,794 cases of stray dog attacks reported in 2019 in its jurisdiction, 3,951 cases in 2020, which doubled to 7,927 cases in 2021, and rose to 11,776 cases in 2022.
This year, up to June, there were already 6,276 cases in Kannur. The district panchayath also estimated that there were some 28,000 strays within its limits.
On September 20 last year, a massive, and ambitious, month-long vaccination drive was announced by Minister for Local Self-government and Excise MB Rajesh a little over a week after a 12-year-old girl died of dog bite wounds at a Kottayam hospital on 2 September.
It was a spectacular failure, despite having received the government-approved rabies vaccine. The reason: The government had clearly overlooked the practical difficulties in vaccinating all the stray canines in the state.
The Animal Husbandry Department’s data during the months of September-October — when the vaccination drive was conducted — showed only 6,218 strays could be vaccinated till 18 October by an 843-man team of dog catchers, against the estimated 2.8 lakh canines roaming the streets of Kerala.
Interestingly, the number of pet dogs vaccinated in Kerala during the same period was more than 2.8 lakh.
Catching and vaccinating 2.8 lakh strays in 30 days works out to 9,333 cases a day; with 843 people on the job, it means at least 11 dogs daily per person.
“Catching stray dogs is not easy,” said Dr Sindhu K, additional director at the state’s Animal Husbandry Department, which had been tasked with the job.
“Some days we vaccinated two or three dogs, some days it was 10, and then there were days we did not manage to vaccinate a single one,” she had then told South First.
Spurred into action by the outcry over the Kottayam girl’s death, and all-around disquiet over the state’s dog bite problem, the Kerala government had, in September last year, filed a plea in Supreme Court seeking the culling of stray canines.
According to an expert committee led by former Kerala High Court Judge S Siri Jagan, which submitted its report to the Supreme Court as part of the state’s plea, there were 21 rabies deaths and 1.96 lakh dog bite cases in the state in 2022 alone.
Even though the Supreme Court had rejected the state’s plea, Minister MB Rajesh said last week that the government would again move the apex court for against restricting personnel of Kudumbashree — a poverty eradication and women empowerment programme of the state government — from performing Animal Birth Control (ABC) procedures.
The Kerala High Court, in December 2021, had directed the state government to immediately restrain Kudumbashree from carrying out ABC procedures.
The directions came while hearing of a public interest litigation (PIL) initiated by the court on its own in the wake of a gruesome killing of a dog which was tied up and beaten to death by some people on Adimalathura beach on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram.
The state government claimed that certain provisions of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and the ABC rules issued under it needed to be relaxed to effectively deal with the nuisance posed by stray canines.
It further claimed that it was taking all precautions and measures to prevent such tragic incidents and would also move the Supreme Court again seeking permission to kill stray dogs which pose a threat to human life.
(With PTI inputs)
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