Three-year-old killed by stray dogs

Three-year-old killed by stray dogs
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

MUMBAI, FEB 15: A three year old boy was mauled to death by a pack of stray dogs yesterday near a hutment colony at Govandi, while he had gone out in the evening to answer nature's call.

Sources said that Vicky Ravi More of New Gautam Nagar, Govandi went out around 6.30 pm on Wednesday evening, and did not come back for a while. About an hour later, when his family members went searching for him, they came upon his injured body and immediately took him to Chembur Centenary Hospital. He was reported to be in a serious state and died within 10 minutes of his admission. A medical examination revealed he had been bitten at 25 places on his body.

Residents from this locality said that a similiar incident had ocurred about a month ago, when a four-month-old infant had been savaged by stray dogs. The baby had been given an oil massage and left alone on the cot, when he was attacked by stray dogs. Several people from the area then staged a morcha and had demanded the municipal authorities tackle the problem of stray dogs.

A senior official in the municipal corporation said that there is a ban on killing of stray dogs since the last six years, and some non governmental organisations had begun work on sterilising them. However, this programme appears to be a complete failure, and the population of stray dogs has gone up to more than three lakh in the city, sources said. There are about 72,000 cases of dog bites in a year from all over the city, and these have resulted in 52 deaths due to rabies, sources said.

The Bombay High Court had taken suo moto writ petition on this matter, and had sent notices to municipal authorities to give details on the animal birth control programme. But the matter has not yet come up for hearing.