LAHORE – ‘Barking dogs seldom bite’. But stray dogs are not only barking and causing noisy atmosphere late at night in residential localities of the city but are also wounding and biting the passers-by.
The City District Government has badly failed to check the rapid growth of stray dogs in the provincial metropolis.
Moreover, the rapid growth of stray dogs is posing a constant threat to citizens because the number of dog biting cases are also on the rise in the and city’s hospitals say that they receive about 20 to 30 patients of dog biting every week.
It is no secret that the department concerned has been allocated sufficient funds by the CDG authorities for the purchase of poison and bullets with transport facilities but all in vain. It is learnt the officials of department concerned, who have to submit weekly report to DCO for showing their performance are using fake facts and figures of dog hunting. Though it claims of exterminating over 154,000 dogs during the last six years, they have multiplied in the provincial metropolis because of the limited funds allocated for the purpose. The strength of the dog killing squads has not been increased for the last 35 years.
However, stray dog in groups can be seen moving about in all par ts of the provincial metropolis in search of food, particularly around the roadside restaurants. They lurk in the streets at night and pose threat to the lone wayfarers. A large number of stray dogs are seen lurking in graveyards, Miani Sahib in particular. On the other hand, the ex-Metropolitan Corporation of Lahore and the CDG squads are reported to have killed around 19,000 dogs during 1997 and 38,911 during 1998. At least 28,185 dogs were exterminated during 1999 and 22,482 during the year 2000. Another 26,188 dogs were killed during 2001 and 8,261 during 2002, according to the official record.
The dogs are not only poisoned but are also shot dead by the squads. The carcasses of the dogs are dumped mostly in the CDG dumping grounds at Mahmud Booti seemingly without polluting the environment.