Srinagar, July 28: His left cheek has been eaten away by stray packs. On the rest of the little face, there are deep wounds while the white round T-Shirt, he is wearing has turned red in his own blood. This is four-year-old Tauseef Ahmed Baba, a latest dog bite victim battling for life at the Surgical ICU of SHMS Hospital here as doctors have declared his condition critical.
 Tauseef, son of an auto rickshaw driver Javed Ahmed, cries in pain but doesn’t want to lose grip on Rs 10 note his mother had given him in the morning. In fact it was this tenner, which proved costly for the little boy’s life.
 Since yesterday Tauseef had been longing for money to buy his favourite biscuit from a nearby shop. Elated to see his dream realized this morning in the ongoing school vacations, this nursery student at once rushed towards the shop near their Naid Kadal residence in old City, the Shaher-e-Khaas.
 But midway came some stray packs only to pounce on the little boy. By the time people came to his rescue, it was late. The deadly packs had eaten away a portion of his face.
 “The dogs were just not willing to leave the boy. Did we fail to chase them away with stones, they would have killed him,” said Imtiaz Ahmed Baig and Javed Ahmed Mir, residents of Naid Kadal who left their day’s business caring for the hospitalized boy. Many residents on the other hand, staged protests against Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) saying the civic body was “talking tall but doing too little to get rid of the dog menace.” “We want results, not statements,” they said.

SHAHER-E-KHAAS FACTOR
 Though Tauseef’s family is new to Naid Kadal area as they actually hail from north Kashmir’s Baramulla district, the old City people didn’t miss to lend an instant helping hand to their small time neighbour.
 Scores of people from the area helped this auto-rickshaw driver in rushing his son to hospital as the boy bled profusely. Like the bite victim, clothes of those carrying him got drenched in his blood.
 As about his father and homemaker mother, the couple fainted crying at the hospital only to be shouldered by the Naid Kadal neighbours. “We knew it’ll be difficult for this family to manage money which they’ll need for instant treatment at the hospital so we came forward to help them out,” the locals said.
 And their prediction came true. They had to get Immunogulobin and other costly medicines from open markets as despite High Court orders, the government has allegedly failed to provide free of cost treatment to bite victims except for the anti rabies vaccines.

OTHER VICTIMS
 Saturday remained another bloody day of dog bites in the City with many falling prey to dog bites, mostly in the old City.  By the time Tauseef was brought to hospital at least half a dozen people had already been treated at the Anti Rabies Clinic (ARC).
 Some of the victims were identified as Danish Ahmed of Nowpora, Momina of Eidgah, Hameed Ahmed of Nowpora, Abdul Saleem of MR Gunj and Ishtiaq Ahmed of Shivpora.
 The actual number of bite victims could be much bigger as not all go to the ARC at SMHS, government’s sole such facility in the City where treatment is available but not fully free of cost.

GOVT CONCERN
 While the general perception is that over one lakh dogs are on prowl, the National Conference led government earlier this year announced that accurate figure is 91,110. As a remedy to dog menace, the SMC till now has sterilized some 400 dogs under the Animal Birth Control-AR program at the state-of-the-art Shuhama dog pound constructed out of money meant for human welfare while the civic body has failed to make any breakthrough for starting a similar parallel facility at Tengpora.

PUBLIC SUGGESTION FACTOR
 Contesting that the ABC-AR wasn’t enough to check the dog menace, the High Court Bar Association, President, Advocate Mian Abdul Qayoom recently prayed before the High Court that the deadly dogs be killed under the provisions of the Municipal Corporation Act.
 The High Court asked him and the general public to file their suggestions before an Expert Committee constituted to check dog menace. But the public response is believed to have been poor.

‘WAKE-UP CIVIL SOCIETY’ 
 Prominent civil society activist Imdad Saki said the dog menace has been growing more so because of “callousness of the people themselves.” “Its shame for all of us that on the issue of dog menace we want to bank on government for everything including suggestions which the honourable High Court had sought from the people,” Saki said asking people to give their suggestions.

BOY STILL LONGS FOR BISCUIT
 Tauseef’s condition is critical as medicos fear worst for this patient registered under MRD No 52924. And even if he survives, it may take him months to get well or eat anything. This is primarily because his treatment is expected to cost thousands of rupees, something too big for an auto-rickshaw driver to afford that too when he has to look after two other kids and wife as well.  
 Though in pain and mouth wide cut, the little boy holds Rs 10 note hard in his hand, may be hoping to buy biscuit. But then like his white T-shirt, the note is turning red!

Lastupdate on : Sat, 28 Jul 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 28 Jul 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 29 Jul 2012 00:00:00 IST