Tens of thousands of menacing stray dogs in ferocious packs have been scaring the lives of people across Kashmir. A few dogs that the Governor of the state thought were too many for Dachigam were recently shooed out of the wildlife sanctuary, but the municipal authorities may be shifting truckloads of canine packs to unsuspecting villages as a remedy! Sameer Yasir and Majid Maqbool reports.
Dachigam National Park is known the world over for being home to the last viable population of the endangered Hangul. But this antelope population here may have lately been perceived as under threat from dogs. Officials in Dachigam say the dogs that hang around a CRPF camp in inside the park feed on waste generated from it. They said when CRPF personnel come down patrolling, dogs follow them, barking, that scares away the Hanguls.
“There were six dogs that were spotted creating problems,” the official said.
Three dogs were recently tranquillized and taken away from Dachigam.
In February, Governor N N Vohra, after visiting the Dachigam National Park, had directed the IG CRPF to take immediate action to remove the dogs roaming inside the park, sources say. The Governor is believed to have passed the orders after seeing more than 10 dogs roaming near the CRPF camp inside the park.
The wildlife officials say that the presence of dogs in the park creates a lot of trouble for the tourists as well. “Even there was a danger of infection to the wild animals due to the presence of dogs in the park,” said an official.
But it is not dogs in Dachigam that are worrying people across the valley. According to the census figures, the number of stray dogs in Srinagar alone is around 91000. Recently, Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC), in a project report submitted to the High court, said that it requires Rs 890 Crore for construction of 1800 dog pounds to tame stray dogs of Srinagar district. It also asked for 2558 kanals of land for the construction of the pounds.
Dr Muhammad Saleem Khan, Assistant professor SPM Government Medical College Srinagar, says last year alone over “18000 dog bite cases were reported by the Directorate of Health Service Kashmir and the ant-rabies clinic of GMC Srinagar.”
The ‘dog menace’ inside the national park may have been taken care of, but the officials in their struggle to keep some areas safe from the canine packs may be just arbitrarily shifting them from more urbane areas to unsuspecting villages.
Pattan area in Baramulla district has become a terrifying place for its residents. The residents say during the last three months there has been a sudden increase in the dog population in the area. Villages like Andergam, Khandyar, Hyderbeigh Palhallan in pattan are full of stray dogs making the life of its residents difficult.
In Dar Pora Sopore more than four incidents of dog bites were reported last week alone. Two children in the village had have been bitten by stray dogs two elderly men have also been bitten.
Farooq Ahamd Hajam of Dar Pora Sopore says the residents had caught a truck some two weeks back carrying dogs from somewhere but they failed to nab the truck driver. He fled from the scene. Later the residents went and hurled stones on the fleeing truck. They informed the police station about the whole incident but no one was able to trace the truck.
Most of the dogs, according to the residents of Dar Pora Sopore, were brought in the middle of the night to avoid public attention but when the residents saw a truck coming to area continuously for four days they tried to catch it.
“The truck carrying the dogs had its number plate removed. We couldn’t find out much about the truck and its driver. There were three people sitting inside the truck on that day.” Says another resident Tanveer Ahmad Gojree, whose brother was bitten by the dogs.
The canines are new to the area and unsettled, they often fight among themselves for domination, in the process often attacking the residents themselves.
No one knows for sure who and why are dogs shifted from unknown areas into some villages. But residents are worried. Were are these dogs coming from and is it true that some agencies of government may be trying to pacify the public outrage over the stray dogs and are trying to take dogs from Srinagar to the other districts.
For the moment no one knows and no one wants to comment on the issue, but the issue has become so hot that mosques in Kashmir valley have become the latest places for the discussion over the menace of stray dogs.
The Imam of the Jamia Masjid of Pulwama, Mohd Akram, has been blaming the district administration during Friday sermons for not doing enough to stop the dog population burgeon.
But Pulwama and Pattan are not the only two places were the increases in the number of dogs have irritated its residents. According to a health officials more than two hundred cases of dog bites have been reported in the last two months in the town.
Ghulam Hussan Ahanager a resident of Pulwama town says he was not surprised when the topic of stray dogs was discussed during the Friday prayers. He told Kashmir life “We are the worst effected and it seems they are not at local dogs they have been brought from somewhere else.”
Across the districts people have been complaining of unusual increase in the number of dogs.
Majid Rashid Gilkar, a student of seventh class living along KP Road in Islamabad says more than thirty dogs recently attacked him when he was coming out of his house. “Thankfully my brother came out and threw stones on them and I was saved.”
More than hundred kilometers from Islamabad town in the north, Baramulla district hospital superintendent Dr Nazeer Ahmad Kangoo says the hospital has received 98 cases of dog bites since February this year.
“The number of cases could be more because the hospital was not equipped with the medicine. So patients would come but later they would go to the private clinics for treatment.”
Baramulla town had never faced the menace of stray dogs. In fact the town had a very small population of dogs till recently, the residents say. Although there was never an official survey conducted about the number of dogs but one official of the municipal committee Baramulla puts the number at around 800 hundred in the town alone.
In Khadniyar area of Baramulla there has been ten cases of dog bites in March. On top of that the sub health center, which is located in the area lacks the basic faculties to treat dog bite.
Here also the stray dog population has suddenly increased lately.
No one noticed this unusual rise until one day people found a truck was making suspicious rounds of the area in the middle of the night. Then, according to some residents, people stopped a truck carrying dogs one evening. After that day people in the area started making rounds so that they can apprehend anyone leaving the dogs in their area. But the truck was never seen again.
In the Dealgam area of Bejbhera in south Kashmir, the truck that the residents of Khadniyar had caught was again seen carrying a full load of dogs. No one knows from were this particular truck gets these dogs and then offloads them in different districts.
According to one resident of Dealgam, Tariq Ahmad Hajam the truck which was carrying the load of dogs in the middle of night had its number plate removed and when people caught the truck driver he was beaten up by the people.
Wali Mohmmad Wani, executive officer municipal committee Kupwara says they are not in a position to do anything check stray dogs. The residents of Kupwara had recently gone to him asking for his help but he says he was impossible to do anything because there is Supreme Court ruling that dogs cannot be culled.
People believe some unknown authority is trying to displace dogs which involves catching, transport and dumping of dogs either elsewhere in the city or outside city limits, in rural areas or forests which migrated to the nearest populated areas in search of food is outrages.
Experts say that dogs turn irritated on being displaced which can endanger residents further from the canines.
Urban Development Minster Nasir Aslam Wani once said Jammu and Kashmir, has 91,110 stray dogs and a pilot project of birth control, dog sterilization and immunization was being implemented to check the increasing menace in the city. But how many of these dogs were displaced no one knows.
Health authorities say stray dogs in the 10 districts of Kashmir have bitten 53,925 people -mostly children – in the past four years.
A Srinagar Take
She is crying. People, mostly men, are sitting around her, consoling her, trying to make her comfortable. Are you fine? Would you like to have water? Don’t worry you are fine now. These were the questions and consolations of the people standing around her. She is too shocked to respond. Fright is clearly visible on her face. She is just crying.
A woman appeared from somewhere with a glass of water. Shazia drinks it, feels better. It looks as if she is regaining her breath. I want to go home, she says.
This group of people accompanied her back home. The door was locked. An older woman opened the door. On seeing Shazia’s condition she started beating her chest. Shazia, who from home has left for office came back in this condition, torn arm of her suit with bloodstains all over it. Blood was oozing out from her arm. Her feet and legs are also injured.
Shazia was late for her office, so thought to take a short route from one of the orchards but little did she know she is going to intrude into the kingdom of dogs. As soon as she reached middle of the orchard she was attacked by at least 50 dogs, she says. She says she tried to run but it was very difficult to run faster than the chasing dogs. “One of them got hold of my hand bag, another jumped at me but got hold of my dupatta. The dog pulled and I was right on the ground. I was screaming as if I had gone mad,” says Shazia.
She says she was ready to be the dog’s meal for the day. “When I was on the ground and my dupatta was in one of the dog’s mouth, it dragged me for some time. I had closed my eyes and was prepared for getting eaten up by them,” she adds. But she feels her screams saved her. “I don’t know how these people managed to get those dogs away. I will be thankful to them all my life,” she adds.
The people who accompanied her home too have their dog stories to share, when and how did they had their narrow escapes!
Many also make statements that Lal Bazar is the worst hit in entire Srinagar. “We have been to other places also, our relatives live in another places but none of them have these many encounters with dogs as we have,” says Ghulam Nabi, an older person, one among the crowd which accompanied Shazia home.
Lately, he had an encounter with a canine pack when he was coming back from the mosque late at night. Most of these encounters have been during night or in these orchards or in the large playgrounds.
This affected population has their own assumptions about the existence of these dogs in the area. Some say that the dog population from VIP areas, mostly uptown are lifted in trucks and dropped in the city outskirts that is why places like Lal bazaar are affected so much.
“Haven’t any of you noticed,” asks Ghulam Mohammed, “that the side of Lal Bazar which connects Malibagh has a huge dog population?” He adds, “It is because of the CRPF camp in between. It is they who dump their tamed dogs in the area to restrict our movements during nights”.
Yes it can be a possibility, says another person, these dogs look much healthier than normal stray dogs. “I have myself once seen their (CRPF) truck dumping dogs in the nearby play field,” says Ghualm Mohammed. He had seen this during his morning walk.
Reporting by Syed Asma
