In a gruesome incident, a 17-year-old mentally and physically-challenged girl was mauled to death by a pack of six stray dogs at Kotha Venkojipalem in the city on Monday morning. The deceased was identified as Mary alias Nookaratnam, daughter of Appala Reddy and Lakshmi.
Apart from being mentally and physically challenged, she was both speech and hearing impaired. Because of all the illness, the girl was very thin, just about three-feet tall and was totally immobile.
While her father works as a security guard, mother adds to the family income by serving as a domestic help. It was the duty of the couple to feed the girl in the morning and leave her in a makeshift cradle in the verandah of their hut, before going to work.
At about 10.30 a.m. on Monday, six stray dogs attacked and mauled her to death. The pathetic thing was that she was neither able to fight back nor scream for help. They even pulled her down from the cradle and tried to drag her into the bushes, adjoining the hutment. According to a neighbour, Ramalakshmi, “Whenever, she would feel hungry, the girl would cry. When I heard her cry, I thought that she was hungry. But when it continued for some time, I came and out and saw six dogs dragging her away. I tried to chase the dogs away, but they attacked me also. I called for help, and a few others joined in chasing the dogs away. But by that time Mary was dead and her body was torn open at various places.”
According to Appalanaidu, a neighbour, the dog menace has increased in the hutment located on the hill slopes after GVMC let loose some dogs in the neighbouring cremation ground, about a month ago. “The dogs returned to lick the blood even after the body was taken away by the police for post-mortem. We are afraid, since we have small children,” he said.
