Dogs take over Delhi streets

WATCH| Dogs Take Over Delhi Streets

Mamoon fell on a pack of stray dogs sleeping on a heap of sand. The dogs chased and attacked him. He was taken to the nearby Holy Family Hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.

The National Human Rights Commission, which took suo motu cognisance of media reports of the incident, called for a wider debate, pitting human rights against animal rights “in a situation where human lives are at risk due to attack by animals”.
Three weeks after the incident, dogs and children roam in dangerous proximity to each other as parents, mostly families of rickshaw-pullers from Jamia Nagar, look on.

Civic authorities claimed to have picked up and sterilised 90 dogs from Jamia Nagar between August 5 and August 17, yet Mamoon’s father was bitten by a dog merely five days after he buried his son.

In all, six Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) help the civic corporations to catch and sterilise dogs in the capital. The NGOs — Sanjay Gandhi Animal Care Centre, Sonadi Charitable Trust, Jeevashram Foundation, Pet Animal Welfare Society, Animal India Trust and Frendicoes — operate from nine centres, all located in different zones of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation. The civic agencies have held discussions with the state government for allotment of space for at least four veterinary hospitals at Bijwasan, Nangloi, Mundela and Masoodpur. But, “response from the government is still awaited”.

The North corporation has acquired a 2,000-sqm plot in Rohini for a sterilisation centre for dogs in the Civil Lines zone, although work is yet to begin on the project. The corporation claimed it would be able to sterilise approximately 10,000 dogs a year at the centre. Besides, the South corporation, too, has taken possession of a 3-acre plot in Dwarka. Notably, the control of the veterinary hospitals of the municipal corporations was given to the Delhi government in 1992. Since then, no new veterinary hospital has come up under the civic corporations.

Without a single veterinary centre of their own, the corporations sometimes catch stray dogs and then hand them over to the NGOs.

Mostly, however, the NGOs catch, sterilise and rehabilitate the dogs on their own.

In the absence of a dog census, the civic corporations don’t know if the sterilisation efforts are succeeding. Despite inviting tenders for a dog census in the city, not a single agency or NGO came forward to take up the work. Proposals to buy more dog-catching vans and increasing manpower, issuing public notices to raise awareness on dog sterilisation, involving Residents’ Welfare Associations in immunisation programmes are all under consideration, but continue to remain on paper. Leader of Opposition in the South corporation, Congress’ Farhad Suri blamed a lack of manpower and willpower to deal with Delhi’s dog menace. “To curtail the growth of the dog population, nearly 70 per cent should be sterilised. But, only 8-9 per cent dogs are sterilised,” he claimed.

Meanwhile, Mamoon’s cousin Majid plays alone in the garbage dump behind the slums. Having lost her child, Mamoon’s mother calls out to him, asking him to come back and play near the hutments.