A viral video that captured two sisters along with a kid meeting a serious accident after being chased by a pack of five aggressive stray dogs in Odisha’s Berhampur city has raised concerns over increasing canine menace across the State.
ADVERTISEMENT
It was a usual Monday for two sisters, A. Sasmita and A. Supriya in Berhampur where they don’t start their day without paying obeisance in the nearby Nilakantheswar Temple. But they had no idea what lay in store for them on April 3.
Barely, they had travelled one kilometer by scooter, A. Sasmita, elder sister and a pillion rider, noticed a dog beginning to bark at them. She ignored it considering it to be minor incident. Soon five dogs came from nowhere and started pouncing on Ms. Sasmita who started shouting in fear. It made her younger sister, Ms. Supriya, nervous and she tried to race away from dogs.
ADVERTISEMENT
As all attention of two sisters was on escaping from the dog attack, Ms. Supriya lost control over scooter and hurtled vehicle into a stationary car. The 38-year-old Ms. Sasmita got tossed up in air after their scooter hit the car.
“Though doctors have ruled out any serious threat to life, I have received injuries in my head and back while my nephew had his teeth broken and my sister had minor injury,” said Ms. Sasmita, who would under another round of tests to confirm that everything is safe.
“After the accident was captured by CCTV camera and subsequently, it got viral, there has been steady flow of calls. Everyone was advising that we should have stopped there, looked in eyes of dogs and repelled them back. But, we knew what the situation was. Had we stopped our scooter, the dogs could have taken away flesh from us,” narrated Ms. Supriya.
ADVERTISEMENT
In Berhampur, stray incidents of dog attacks have come to the fore. Similar is the situation in Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation area. People are worried about letting their children play in open due to fear of dogs.
Meanwhile, six stray dogs including three puppies were allegedly poisoned to death in a slum in Bhubaneswar. It took place near Maitri Vihar area. The dogs were found vomiting, an indication the canines were poisoned. During the past few days, residents of the colony were irritated over chasing by dogs.
In some areas, dogs are not getting leftover food items following door-to-door collections by BMC. As dogs remain hungry for days, they start attacking people. During COVID-19 pandemic time, the Odisha Government had made monetary allocations for making food sure of stray dogs. (