In wake of attacks on children by feral dogs in Sitapur, the Uttar Pradesh government has constituted a State-level committee to “manage population growth of stray dogs, eradicate rabies and minimise clashes between humans and dogs”.
The 11-member surveillance and implementation committee will be chaired by the Principal Secretary, Urban Development, as per the Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules-2001, the government said in a statement.
“This committee has been constituted by overriding the committee set up on June 29, 2017 in compliance of the order passed by the Supreme Court on March 09, 2016 in a writ petition, Animal Welfare Board of India vs. People for Elimination of Stray Troubles and others,” the government said.
The members of the committee include senior officials like the Director of Animal Husbandry, Principal Secretary, Health, Principal Secretary, Panchayati Raj, and representatives of the Animal Welfare Board of India among others.
The government step comes after more than a dozen children have died in Sitapur district and several others injured in attacks by feral dogs. While speculation was over whether the animals attacking the children were wolves, the District Magistrate, Sheetal Verma, has now clarified that as per probe it was found that they were in fact feral dogs.
“The Wildlife Institute of India and Humane Society of India have confirmed that the animals are feral dogs and not wolves or other such animals,” Ms. Verma said.
V.K. Gupta, Joint Director, Indian Veterinary Research Institute, animal disease research, also said that as per the findings of his team the animals looked ‘morphologically’ dogs but DNA sequence of the samples collected from the ground would help confirm it.
Samples tested
The IVRI has also tested samples of a dead dog from the affected area to test if the deaths of the children could be attributed to rabies. “The tests were found negative,” Mr. Gupta told The Hindu .
Two more dead dogs, probably lynched by the enraged locals, were brought to the IVRI on Wednesday for post-mortem and their samples have been sent for rabies test.
According to the government reports, most of the attacks have taken place while the children were alone in the mango orchards or out to defecate in the open.
While the causes behind the aggressive behaviour of the dogs are still being studied, the government has so far caught more than 40 dogs and sent them to the Kanha Upvan in Lucknow for sterilization and to be released later.
Drones deployed
The police have deployed drones and night-vision binoculars and camera traps to map the areas especially during dawn and conduct regular combing of the area to trap the animals.
During his visit to the affected area -- Khairabad in Sitapur -- on May 11, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had said that since most of the attacks were recorded when children went out to defecate, the affected 22 villages would be chosen under the Open Defecation Free project.
