Muvattupuzha municipal chairman U.R. Babu on Saturday wrote to Union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi, explaining the circumstances under which stray dogs were killed within the municipal limits.
Mr. Babu on Friday received a call from the Minister’s additional private secretary asking him to show cause for not initiating legal action against him over the alleged killing of stray dogs.
“She wanted to know whether the municipal chairman had convened an emergency council meeting and exhorted people to kill stray dogs. I was told that the Minister was mulling legal action against me if that was the case,” Mr. Babu said.
He explained to the additional private secretary the circumstances under which the dogs were killed and clarified that no emergency council was convened to order the killing of dogs. He also wrote to the Minister, explaining in detail the sequence of events that led to the killing of dogs.
In the letter, he said when stray dogs bit 30-odd persons, including women, even a pregnant woman was bitten, and children, the people in the locality turned violent and killed a few dogs. To substantiate the events, clippings of media reports were attached alongside. “We made it very clear that neither the council nor the chairman had given any direction to kill stray dogs,” Mr. Babu said.
SC directive
The municipality now finds itself in a spot of bother. While the agitated public wants a solution to the stray dog menace, the municipality is left with its hands tied in the face of a Supreme Court directive against killing stray dogs. Left with no other alternative, the municipal authorities have conveyed its helplessness to the people while allowing them to take proper recourse to ensure their peaceful life. “Since people know about the troublesome dogs in their respective localities, they can deal with them,” Mr. Babu said.
He said it was high time the State and the Union governments moved the Supreme Court to get its order on stray dogs revisited.
The municipality witnessed multiple incidents of stray dog attack in quick succession. Four dogs were killed by the irate public on Friday alone. “For instance, a dog bit a boy’s forehand and to free himself, the boy smothered it to death,” Mr. Babu said. At least 11 persons were injured in the municipal suburbs on Friday, with some of them grievously hurt.
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