MUMBAI: Dog bites in Mumbai accounted for more deaths in 20 years than the combined toll in two deadly terror strikes in the city-the 1993 serial bomb blasts and 26/11 attacks.
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) made this startling disclosure before the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Since 1994, a total of 429 people, bitten by stray dogs, have succumbed to rabies and during the same period dog bites injured 13.12 lakh people. In the 1993 serial bomb blasts, a total of 257 people were killed and 717 injured. The 26/11 fidayeen attack on Mumbai resulted in 164 deaths and injuries to 308 others. Together, the toll was 421 deaths and 1,025 injured.
Appearing for the BMC, senior advocate Shekhar Naphade targeted NGOs which have moved the court against culling of strays. He told a bench of Justice Dipak Misra and P C Pant "the NGOs are active and make noise only in court. Every year, a large number of persons get bitten by dogs in Mumbai. When we try to remove the dogs, animal lovers protest. They do nothing on the ground to eliminate the problem. Let NGOs disclose to the court what have they done at the ground level".
Dog menace: SC asks animal board for rules
Appearing for a widow whose daily wager husband died of dog bite in Kerala, advocate V K Biju said the SC must decide which authority - the civic body or state government - should compensate the family.
Amicus curiae Dushyant Dave joined shoulder with Naphade and said he had received a message from a lady who has a spastic child who fears dogs. "She cannot take her child even around the housing society because of the huge number of stray dogs."
"There is one thing to be animal lover. But these animal lovers are so passionate that they obstruct the work of the civic bodies in capturing the stray dogs and sterilise them. Have the NGOs protested when infants are killed by stray dogs? Have the NGOs compensated the victims' families? Apart from injuries, several people desist from taking walk in the morning and evening because of the fear they have from dogs," he said.
The court, while asking the Animal Welfare Board to formulate a module to deal with the menace of stray dogs, asked states and union territories to respond to Dave's questions - how many deaths have been caused due to rabies and the number of dogs sterilised by the civic bodies.
On Naphade's complaint against obstructionist attitude of NGOs, the bench said: "We direct sterilisation and vaccination of stray dogs in accordance with the law and no NGO shall create any impediment in this work."
