Feral dogs kill 3 kids, terrorise UP villages
SITAPUR: Feral dogs killed three children in separate incidents in the Khairabad area of Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur district on Tuesday, according to the police, taking to nine the total number of children killed in the past six months by the dogs, which once used to feed on animal remains thrown away by slaughterhouses in the vicinity, but have become desperate after these were closed or shifted.
Station Officer (SO) of Khairabad police station, Sachin Kumar Singh, confirmed that two girls aged 11 and 12, and a 12-year old boy were killed in by the dogs in Tikaria, Gurpulia and Kholia villages.
The dogs, around 100 of them, run free in a radius of around 8-km from Khairabad, nearly 80 km north west of Lucknow, and residents say around 15 children have been killed by them. SO Singh confirmed that only nine killings can be attributed to the dogs. The residents say many others, including adults, have been injured.
The district magistrate (DM) of Sitapur, Sheetal Verma, conceded that the dogs have been attacking children for the past six months, resulting in some deaths. She said the authorities of Khairabad municipality and forest department have been asked to carry out a survey of dogs in the area and four teams had been formed under the supervision of sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Sadar Shashank Tripathi to comb thickets around the villages surrounding Khairabad .
Tuesday’s deaths set off panic in the, area with residents saying even adults aren’t safe from the dogs and that most mango orchards have been left untended and unguarded on this account.
Infuriated by the killings on Tuesday, a group of villagers launched a drive to exterminate the dogs and killed four of them.
“All the children were attacked by the dogs when they were alone. The villagers rushed to rescue the children after hearing their screams but failed to save their lives. The back-to-back incidents have angered villagers who subsequently killed some dogs in the area,” SO Singh said.
“The initial survey revealed that over 100 of dogs in the area have turned rogue and been repeatedly attacking children after the closure of slaughterhouse in the area. The dogs earlier used to feed on remains that slaughterhouses used to dispose of,” Verma said.
Verma said the forest department and Khairabad municipality are already working on the problem. “We have also sought help from municipal corporations of Lucknow and Mathura for catching dogs as there is no dog-catching squad in Sitapur,” she said.
Feral dogs are a common sight in carcass dumps and in and around slaughter houses across India, although it is rare for them to attack humans and inflict as much damage as they have in Khairabad.