Srinagar, June 30: Amid government curbs on human protests against deadly dog menace in Srinagar, the coalition is all set to host prominent animal rights activist and Member Parliament Maneka Gandhi, who is scheduled to review “dog welfare” in this summer Capital during her trip to Kashmir.
 Sources said Gandhi is scheduled to review on Sunday the measures undertaken by the ruling National Conference for “welfare of stray dogs.”
 They said the major development, which the government wants to show her, is the “resort like” state-of-the-art dog pounds at Shumama, the facility often being seen as healthier than the children hospital at Sonawar.
 While over 1300 children have died at the sole paediatric hospital in the past around a year, the government is satisfied at “zero mortality” of stray dogs undergoing sterilization at the pounds near the Zaberwan hills.

THE TRIP
 The trip, scheduled to be of at-least two days, as per insiders, will include her high level meeting with the state government officials including  Administrative Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department while the visiting dignitary will chair it.
 The meeting will apprize Gandhi about the steps being taken by the state government for Animal Birth Control (ABC) program, under which the dogs are being sterilized.
 “The kind of care given to the stray dogs and the food they are provided at the pound will also be discussed threadbare at the meeting,” said a senior vet at the SK University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST Kashmir), the varsity which is providing expertise for canine sterilization.
 “Her (Maneka’s) visit will be like an audit of the dog welfare measures being undertaken by the government,” the vet, a part of the ABC program told Greater Kashmir.

THE DEADLY REALITY
 Official documents reveal that the dog attacks have been on record high in Srinagar while around a dozen people, mostly children and women, on average fall prey to dog bites, everyday. But there have been some incidents when a much bigger number of humans were attacked in a day as happened on April 23 when at least 51 persons were wounded.
 Of the deadly attacks in the past few months, the picture of 3-year-old Dua Meraj has turned iconic of dog menace in Srinagar. The poor girl was defaced when stray packs attacked her near her Habba Kadal residence in Shaher-e-Khaas.
 The dog bites have broken all previous known records in the City with almost 80% increase in the deadly cases within a year. From 4230 cases reported in 2010, the number swelled to 7257 in 2011. And, the actual figures could be even bigger as this data pertains to cases administered at the SMHS Hospital run Anti-Rabies Clinic (ARC) alone.
 There’s another record about the dog bite cases. The medicos treating patients at the ARC said maximum cases were Category-3 Bites, considered deadliest among the canine attacks.
 Even though the government admits its chronic failure to provide free Immunoglobin, something vital for treatment to bite cases, the coalition is spending millions to construct dog pounds and related facilities.

BOTTOMLINE UNANSWERED
 As about the behavior of the sterilized dogs, a million dollar question, last year, posed by the then Chief Justice FM Ibraheem Kalif Ullah remains unanswered: Will a dog stop biting after sterilization?

Lastupdate on : Sat, 30 Jun 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 30 Jun 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 1 Jul 2012 00:00:00 IST