M HYDERI
Srinagar,  May 4: Prominent writer  and “dog rights activist” Javed Iqbal Shah who recently said he last year complained that the dogs were being poisoned in Srinagar, has accused the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) and City’s civic body of  making the dog sterilization plan a multi-crore venture.
 Shah has been sending a rapid-fire of mails to this correspondent and others, more so, since the AWBI asked the state government to disband Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), which he was associated with.
 The AWBI last month accused the SPCA of failing to perform its duties and misuse of assets. This triggered leveling of allegations from both sides as Shah jumped into the fray.

THE MILLION DOLLAR OUTBURST
 Shah in an email alleged: “For the past one year running, the AWBI role in Srinagar far from bring ideal or conducive to the objectives of mandated participatory ABC and animal welfare has actually been instrumental in institutionalizing and bureaucratizing the concept of multi-crore mega pounds that have invariably led to malfeasance and proven rampant animal cruelty elsewhere in India.”

‘COTTAGE INDUSTRY BELIEF’
 He said the dog sterilization could have cost “peanuts” had the AWBI and the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) listened to him and his plans.
 Pleading this, Shah said: “What Kashmir needed was not mega-pounds but community ABC program with animal sympathizers and public support run in compact, interspersed ABC centers costing peanuts, rather than large and pleasant multi-million pounds breeding personal aggrandizement and gratis experimentation by ineligible hands.”
 Asked what it meant, he said, localized makeshift camps could be held in various City areas like Residency Road or Poloview to undertake sterilization of dogs on-the-spot.

DOG TOURISM
 In an e-mail to the AWBI top-brass, Javed claimed to have said: “Under your leadership the AWBI has earned the dubious distinction of turning the mandate of this holy institution upside down on its head. Not just in Kashmir but in the rest of India as well.”
 He accused the AWBI of trying to “promote dog tourism” in Srinagar by making Animal Birth Control (ABC)  program a means of coming to Srinagar for holidaying.
 “AWBI will no longer function as a fiefdom - its actions are already being called to question. A suffering populace in Kashmir already besieged by the enormity of the problem is losing patience and will not brook any further dogmatic pursuit of vested interest or self-deluding solutions by AWBI and SMC at the expense of its well being,” he said.
 Shah also accused some of his erstwhile colleagues at SPCA of being influential and working on the behest of AWBI. The AWBI people couldn’t be contacted for comments.

AWAY FROM DOG MENACE
 Though Shah stresses for the sterilization, which won’t bring any immediate decrease in the number of dogs, he seemingly doesn’t want to face the stray packs.
 Although he insists that he spends half the month in Valley, Shah is often stationed in New Delhi. Asked to come to Srinagar and go for jogging or ride a bike in the evening, he argued: “You want me to face music (of stray dogs)?”

BOTTOMLINE UNCERTAINTY
 Although Shah claims to have been insisting for sterilization as the only solution to dog menace, he too is uncertain of the results. Asked could he assure that if dog sterilized, as per his plan wouldn’t bite, he replied: “You cannot change someone’s nature.”
 This million dollar question has been doing the rounds in the City since last year when the then Chief Justice FM Ibraheem Kalifullah asked it before the full courtroom. But none could reply his query: Will a dog stop biting after sterilization.
(To be concluded)

Lastupdate on : Fri, 4 May 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 4 May 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 5 May 2012 00:00:00 IST