What action have you taken to check stray dog menace in Srinagar? HC asks SMC

The High Court on Monday directed the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) to inform it about the implementation of its orders passed on a public interest litigation (PIL) related to dog menace in Kashmir.    

Hearing the PIL by advocate A R Hanjura, a division bench of Justice Ali Muhammad Magrey and Justice Sanjeev Kumar directed the SMC through its standing counsel Momin Khan to file the latest status report in this regard by April 8.  

   

The court also directed state’s additional advocate general Shah Aamir, representing the Health and Medical Education Department to come up with details about the availability of medicines in the primary Medical Centers in Kashmir.

In January last year, the High Court had directed the SMC to inform the court about the time within which the civic body would sterilize all the dogs of the Srinagar city.   The court had also directed the SMC to take help from Animal Welfare Board for providing expertise for catching the dogs so that they are sterilised and immunised.  The High Court had also directed Housing and Urban Development Department (H&UDD) to provide required finance assistance to SMC for controlling the menace of stray dogs in the summer capital. 

The Court had said if there are 40,000 to 45,000 dogs in the Srinagar city as indicated by the SMC, it would be inadequate for such an extremely large number of dogs.  The court had also directed the Health department to inform it by the next date of hearing about the availability anti-rabies vacancies and human rabies immunoglobulin injections in all dispensaries and hospitals in the state.   

It had ordered the SMC to give a wide publicity in print media particularly in Urdu newspapers with wide circulations in Srinagar city to as to “what a person should do in case a stray dog bites him or her”.   

 “This must be done not as one time measure but as continuing activity from time to time. Apart from this public awareness must be created through Radio, Television, and Social media,” the Court had said.

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