Surging dog-bite cases across Kashmir reveal a deepening public health crisis, driven by unchecked stray populations, waste mismanagement, delayed treatment, and systemic failure to prevent entirely avoidable deaths, writes Masood Hussain
For nearly three months, Muhammad Rafiq Naik, an Assistant Sub-Inspector in Jammu and Kashmir Police (JKP), lived with a virus he did not know was killing him. It entered his body quietly, through a scratch so minor it barely registered as an injury.
In June 2023, near the Neel Valley close to Banihal, a rabid dog lunged at him. Naik raised a stick in reflex. In the brief scuffle, the animal’s teeth never sank deep, but its claws grazed his fingers. Drool splashed onto his clothes. The wounds were superficial, thin red lines that faded quickly. He took a single anti-rabies shot and returned to duty, convinced the scratches were from the stick, not the dog. The danger, unseen and untreated, had already begun its slow ascent through his nervous system.
Weeks passed without alarm. The virus travelled silently, moving along nerve pathways, inching toward the brain. Rabies does not announce itself early. It waits. When symptoms finally appeared, they were sudden and merciless.
By the middle of August, the 52-year-old officer’s health deteriorated rapidly. He developed agitation, anxiety, and then the unmistakable terror of hydrophobia, the inability to swallow even a sip of water without violent spasms. He was rushed first to the district hospital and then referred to AIIMS for specialised care. By then, medicine had little to offer. Doctors could only confirm what his family would soon be told: once rabies becomes symptomatic, survival is almost unheard of.
AIIMS could not reverse what three months of unchecked viral progression had sealed. On the return journey to Ramban, his body gave up near Akhnoor. He died on the highway, far from home, in transit, after a futile race against time. It was a single misjudgment that proved fatal: incomplete vaccination, delayed treatment, and a misunderstanding of how rabies spreads, not just through bites, but through scratches and saliva contacting broken skin.
Rabies Returns
This death was not an isolated tragedy. It was a stark marker of a widening public health crisis unfolding quietly across Jammu and Kashmir, one driven by an unchecked stray dog population, a sharp rise in dog-bite incidents, persistent myths around treatment, and years of administrative inertia. What was once dismissed as an occasional civic nuisance has, over the past three years, hardened into a lethal mix of fear, misinformation and institutional failure.
Officially, there were five rabies deaths reported in 2024, up from four in 2023 and none in 2022, tell only tells part of the story. Doctors at Government Medical College (GMC), Srinagar, believe the actual toll is higher, especially in rural and semi-rural areas where dog bites often go unreported, and families turn to faith healers or unqualified practitioners instead of hospitals.
In 2025, at least three confirmed rabies deaths were reported within the first six months. Among them was a six-year-old child from Kulgam, whose death shook the medical community. In Rajouri, a young girl died after being treated by quacks. In Srinagar, the youth who collapsed at SMHS Hospital had reportedly delayed seeking proper post-exposure treatment.
“Rabies is not a mysterious disease,” a senior doctor at GMC Srinagar said. “What is mysterious is why people are still dying of it in 2025.”
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Dog Bites in Jammu and Kashmir |
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| District | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
| Anantnag | 595 | 1027 | 1300 |
| Badgam | 2300 | 2921 | 3417 |
| Bandipora | 1378 | 1474 | 1669 |
| Baramulla | 1982 | 2911 | 3076 |
| Doda | 246 | 864 | 1291 |
| Ganderbal | 944 | 901 | 850 |
| Jammu | 11877 | 17437 | 20038 |
| Kathua | 1457 | 3644 | 3973 |
| Kishtwar | 432 | 572 | 511 |
| Kulgam | 1635 | 1993 | 2189 |
| Kupwara | 1493 | 913 | 699 |
| Poonch | 369 | 789 | 681 |
| Pulwama | 627 | 802 | 1571 |
| Rajauri | 1372 | 2114 | 2130 |
| Ramban | 647 | 959 | 650 |
| Reasi | 30 | 421 | 641 |
| Samba | 852 | 2257 | 2552 |
| Shopian | 590 | 201 | 388 |
| Srinagar | 4535 | 5526 | 5482 |
| Udhampur | 1303 | 3301 | 3949 |
| Total | 34664 | 51027 | 57057 |
A Widespread Crisis
Every morning across Jammu and Kashmir now begins with an unspoken calculation: how to navigate streets, alleys, school gates and hospital corridors without provoking the packs of stray dogs that have become a permanent feature of public life. Official data reflects this everyday anxiety with brutal clarity. Reported dog-bite cases rose from 34,664 in 2023 to 51,027 in 2024 and further to 57,057 in 2025, placing Jammu and Kashmir among the worst-affected regions in the country.
Behind these numbers lie stories of avoidable injury, trauma and death, particularly from rabies, a disease that is entirely preventable with timely medical care.
The dog-bite epidemic spares no district. Jammu district tops the chart, with cases rising from 11,877 in 2023 to 17,437 in 2024, and further to 20,038 in 2025, accounting for more than a third of all reported bites across Jammu and Kashmir. Residential colonies, markets and institutional areas have increasingly become zones of daily anxiety, particularly for children and the elderly.
In Kashmir, the crisis mirrors patterns of rapid urban expansion and chronic waste mismanagement. Srinagar consistently remains among the worst affected, recording 4,535 cases in 2023, peaking at 5,526 in 2024, and remaining alarmingly high at 5,482 in 2025. The surging of numbers reflects not control, but saturation, stray dog populations firmly entrenched across neighbourhoods, hospital campuses, parks and government offices.
Neighbouring districts show similar trajectories. Budgam climbed steadily from 2,300 to 3,417 cases over three years, underscoring how stray populations are spilling out of Srinagar into semi-urban belts. Baramulla crossed 3,000 cases by 2025, while Anantnag more than doubled its numbers, highlighting the south Kashmir spread of the problem.
Other Kashmir districts reflect equally troubling trends. Pulwama nearly doubled its cases in a single year, Kulgam rose to 2,189, Bandipora increased steadily, and Shopian, though fluctuating, remains affected. In north Kashmir, Kupwara and Ganderbal show declining figures, but health officials caution that this may reflect underreporting rather than success.
In the Jammu division beyond the winter capital, the spread into hilly and previously low-incidence districts is particularly striking. Kathua, Samba and Udhampur have recorded steep increases, while Reasi, once reporting just 30 cases in 2023, rose to 641 in 2025.
Rajouri saw cases rise from 1,372 to 2,114, and then 2,130, while Poonch increased from 369 to 789, before marginally dropping to 681. Ramban moved from 647 to 959, and then down to 650, while Doda recorded a steep climb from 246 in 2023 to 864 in 2024, and 1,291 in 2025. Kishtwar rose from 432 to 572, before a slight decline to 511.
Garbage and Governance
Behind these numbers lies a common story of systemic neglect. Municipal officials privately admit that the explosion in stray dog populations is closely linked to unmanaged garbage, open dumping sites, abandoned slaughter waste and long-stalled Animal Birth Control (ABC) programmes. Sterilisation centres are either non-functional or grossly inadequate, shelters are few and understaffed, and coordination between departments is minimal.
Jammu and Kashmir generates about 1,470 tonnes of municipal solid waste every day, yet less than 20 per cent, around 283 tonnes, is scientifically treated, according to data submitted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in Parliament on December 1, 2025, exposing a deep structural gap between waste collection and processing capacities. While nearly all waste generated in urban areas, about 1,468 tonnes per day, is now being collected through municipal systems, treatment capacity has failed to keep pace with rapid urbanisation, leaving cities like Srinagar and Jammu heavily dependent on landfills and legacy dumps that still await bioremediation.
The figures, compiled by the Central Pollution Control Board under the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, show that Jammu and Kashmir lags behind even smaller Union Territories such as Puducherry and Lakshadweep, which treat 100 per cent of their waste, and Ladakh, which processes more than half of what it generates.
Enforcement, meanwhile, has become politically sensitive. Civic authorities frequently cite resistance from activists and fear of backlash as reasons for inaction. The result is paralysis, one that leaves children walking to school, patients visiting hospitals and elderly residents navigating public spaces at daily risk.
No Accountability
Unlike some other states, Jammu and Kashmir offers no compensation to victims of dog bites or to families of those who die due to rabies. There is no notified policy, no ex gratia relief, and no automatic accountability mechanism. Victims receive medical treatment, anti-rabies vaccines and wound care, but financial relief ends there.
This places Jammu and Kashmir at odds with states like Karnataka, which has notified compensation for stray dog attacks (Rs 5 lakh in case of death and Rs 5000 for a bite), and with judicial precedents in Punjab and Haryana, where courts have fixed financial liability on the state based on a tooth mark or per measure of flesh injury. Even Chandigarh has implemented a compensation mechanism through its civic body, disbursing relief to hundreds of dog-bite victims after verification. In Jammu and Kashmir, victims are left to fend for themselves or pursue lengthy litigation, an option few can afford.
Supreme Court Steps In
It is against this backdrop that the Supreme Court’s sharp observations in January 2026 assume critical importance. Warning that states could be directed to pay “heavy compensation” for dog-bite injuries and deaths, the court openly criticised years of non-implementation of statutory norms.
The division bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and NV Anjaria made it clear that accountability would not stop with the State. Dog feeders and animal lovers, the judges said, could also be held responsible if animals they support attack people. The court questioned the logic of feeding strays in public spaces without assuming responsibility for their behaviour, signalling a shift away from what it termed selective compassion.
The hearing revolved around the court’s November 7, 2025, order directing authorities to remove stray dogs from institutional areas and roads, an observation with immediate relevance in Jammu and Kashmir, where dogs are routinely seen inside hospitals, universities, courts and government complexes.
The bench also voiced frustration at repeated obstruction by activists and NGOs, noting that the problem had “multiplied a thousand times” while authorities remained inactive. References to tens of thousands of feral dogs in Ladakh threatening wildlife further underlined that the issue spans public health, governance and environmental conservation.
A swift urbanisation of Ladakh, especially Leh, has created a new crisis in the desert as the dogs lost their status as companion animals, hunters, watchdogs and shepherd dogs. Unlike summer, when they would manage their food from the tourist waste, the winters are gruelling. They leave the town and move to the desert in huge packs and run riot.
“They threatened snow leopards, wolves and foxes, and prey on rare species like Pallas’s cat, the Eurasian Lynx, Tibetan gazelle, blue sheep, ibex, and Himalayan marmot,” The Times of India reported, quoting Lobzang Visuddha, who heads the Wildlife Conservation and Birds Club of Ladakh (WCBCL). “The dogs also threaten ground-nesting birds, with packs frequently chasing black-necked cranes, the UT’s state bird, and attacking ruddy shell duck chicks when they move from rocky nesting sites to nearby water bodies.”
A Preventable Tragedy
Rabies deaths, doctors insist, are among the most tragic because they are entirely preventable. Timely vaccination, proper wound cleaning, public awareness and functioning civic systems could save every single life currently being lost.
Yet as stray dogs continue to dominate streets, garbage continues to pile up, and fear replaces policy, Jammu and Kashmir finds itself confronting a crisis that is no longer about animals versus humans. It is about governance, public health and accountability.
Dog bites are a national crisis. Across India, free-ranging dogs have emerged as a contentious national challenge, with culling largely illegal, animal welfare sentiments limiting policy choices, and slow, labour-intensive sterilisation efforts failing to significantly curb the growing population.
“We have a slow-paced sterilisation process in vogue,” one animal lover said, insisting that people associated with the exercise usually avoid marking the sterilised dogs. “Some NGOs had approached the government that they would partner in the process of sterilisation, but the SMC discouraged the idea, and that is why we are unable to keep pace with the requirements.”
Until the state acts decisively, through sterilisation, waste reform, compensation frameworks and sustained public education, the question haunting hospital wards and neighbourhood streets remains painfully simple: how many more bites, and how many more deaths, before prevention finally begins?
