Feral dogs stronger, attack children strategically
LUCKNOW: Killer dogs in the region have a stronger build than ordinary village dogs.
Eyewitnesses as well police officials say the killer dogs are not only stronger but violent in nature and attack children in a strategic manner.
Superintendent of police (SP) of Sitapur Anand Kulkarni said he visited all four villages where children were attacked on Friday morning and found many similarities in all attacks . He apprehended that it was the same pack of dogs which was moving around and attacking children in Sitapur villages.
The SP said eyewitness of all incidents mentioned that the attacker dogs were bigger and stronger as compared to normal strays . “In all the incidents, the dogs had attacked in a strategic manner as wolves do while attacking their prey. They isolated one of the children after finding him or her alone and then pulled down their victim,” he stressed.
He said the dogs had caused injuries on throat, face and abdomen of children after pulling them down in every incident.
Kulkarni said the same modus operandi of ‘killer’ dogs was found in previous incidents in other villages. He said it was suspected that the same pack of dogs was involved in all incidents as no attack was reported in other areas where the district administration started combing the thickets after three children were killed on Tuesday. He said the same pack of dogs apparently moved towards other villages and attacked children.
Sitapur city magistrate Harsh Dev Pandey said the forest department officials had been alerted and asked to identify the pack of dogs attacking children. He said the foresters officials had also been asked to assist police and district administration to end the menace as it was now growing bigger and villagers were terrified due to back-toback incidents.
He said he held a meeting of all police stations in charges and circle officers to curb the menace . “Police and district administration teams will comb every year in the morning as well evening time until the ‘killer’ dogs get identified,” he said .
Pandey said the police stations in charges had been told to rope in village pradhans to alert residents of other villages to not allow their children to move out alone, especially in the morning and evening . He said adult people had been told to accompany the children if they were going out and to equip themselves with canes to combat dogs in case of an attack.