Srinagar, Aug 12: The High Court on Friday pulled up administration for failing to put a check on the dog menace and directed it to come up with dog ponds within two weeks.
 The division bench comprising Chief Justice Ibraheem Kalifullah and Justice Muhammad Yaqoob Mir took a serious note of the delay in construction of dog ponds where the canines prowling in the City are to be confined.
 The division bench observed that the sterilization of stray dogs wasn’t the priority but confining them to ponds had to be laid emphasis on.
 “They (officials) have done nothing. They are not bothered about the plight of people because they themselves travel by air-conditioned cars … They (officials) cannot understand the problem faced by people,” advocate Nadeem Qadri who had filed the PIL, quoted Chief Justice as having said.
 Advocate General Ishaq Qadri, government counsel, on the other hand, prayed that two ponds would be constructed: one at Chattergam and the other in Pandrethan area.

THE PIL PLEA
 Advocate Nadeem Qadri pleaded that stray dogs have unleashed a reign of terror and that immediate measures were required to get rid of the menace. He said the concerned authorities had failed to act properly.
 On April 28, he had filed a PIL praying before the High Court that dog menace be brought to an end while the division bench had directed the state government to remove all the stray dogs from Srinagar by catching them and putting them at ponds. The High Court had given them two months for the tasks. Thereafter the stay packs were scheduled to be sterilized at the ponds.

THE OTHER SIDE
 There was no lawyer from the Animal Welfare Board of India side as their counsel for the first hearing, Mir Syed Lateef, a leading lawyer, withdrew to plead for the AWBI.
 “They (AWBI people) looked non serious towards this very sensitive issue which is proving deadly for the people of Kashmir in general and Srinagar in particular,” Lateef told Greater Kashmir.
 “They didn’t support the issue, the way it should have been done. So I gave up on moral grounds,” the lawyer admitted.
 But while pleading the case on behalf of Society for Prevention of Cruelty against Animals, Lateef at the courtroom said, sterilization was the only viable medium to curb the dog menace.
 He, however, didn’t hesitate to admit that the stray dogs have unleashed a region of terror.
 Referring to a recent GK news report, he said an innocent Pulwama boy died of dog bites.
 Later talking to Greater Kashmir, Lateef said: “It’s expected that a dog will bite. But what have the humans at the helm of affairs done to tackle the situation? How will they prevent a bite?”

THE MENACE
 The summer capital with over one lakh dogs reportedly on prowl has witnessed a surge in the canine attacks while at least three persons including a 10-year old boy died during the past three months.
 Pertinently, the dog menace came back to the spotlight in February this year when Divisional Commissioner Kashmir Dr Asgar Hassan Samoon volunteered to form Dog Committee to tackle the menace. Thereafter there came many ups and downs in the endeavour till in the spring of this year, the High Court finally intervened in response to PIL filed by Viva, an NGO.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 13 Aug 2011 00:00:00 IST