Yogi meets Sitapur feral dog attack victims, gives ex gratia
SITAPUR: Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday met the victims of feral dog attacks in Sitapur and directed officials to ensure proper treatment to the injured children. He also asked officials to take preventive measures to check recurrence of such attacks.
The CM announced ex gratia of ₹2 lakh each for the families of the children who lost their lives in the attacks and ₹25,000 each for the injured.
Yogi said incidents of dog attacks had been reported from 22 villages of Sitapur.
Earlier, the chief minister reached Sitapur district hospital and met two children who were injured in dog attacks. He interacted with their relatives and directed hospital authorities to ensure proper treatment of the children.
Uttam Kumar, father of 12-year-old dog attack victim Aman, said: “The CM has assured us help in the treatment of my child.” Before reaching the hospital, Yogi met the families of dog attack victims at Sitapur Police Lines.
The CM visited Gurpalia village in Khairabad area of Sitapur where a 12-year-old boy Khalid was killed in a feral dog attack on May 1. He also met the families of two other injured children in the same village.
Khalid’s mother Mehzabi said, “I have lost my child but the government should ensure nobody else’s child gets killed in such a manner. My son was brilliant in studies and we used to believe he would excel in life and change the financial condition of the family.”
The family hardly earns Rs 12,000 a month. Khalid was second among five siblings.
Amanullah Khan, an eyewitness to the attack on Khalid, said the boy was attacked by a pack of feral dogs, adding that the dogs even attacked him when he tried to rescue Khalid.
“I somehow managed to chase away the dogs when other villagers came rushing after coming to know about the attack,” he added.
Khan said he had never seen any hyena or wolf in the region. “Sometimes foxes have been spotted in the area but they run away on seeing humans,” he said.
Roshan Lal, father of 10-yearold girl Saloni who was injured in an attack in Rehmankheda village on April 27, said Yogi met his daughter and asked her to study hard. The CM discussed the issue with the officials of Sitapur, who briefed him about the measures being taken to check such attacks. Sitapur came under spotlight after the death of six children in feral dog attacks last week, taking the toll to 12 since November last year.
The district administration has started a drive to capture and sterilise dogs.
An animal birth control centre has been made operational and teams have been formed to make residents aware of steps to prevent dog attacks.
Forest officials have also been deployed to keep feral dogs away from villages. Experts from the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have also been roped in to provide scientific inputs on the issue.
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“The CM has directed us to make villages affected by dog attacks open defection free (ODF). 22 villages have been marked to be made ODF. I have ordered the concerned officials to ensure this at the earliest.
SHEETAL VERMA, Sitapur district magistrate
LUCKNOW: Multiple videos and photographs of dog killing, allegedly from different villages of Khairabad, Sitapur, which are being circulated on social media have infuriated animal lovers and activists. They have demanded an inquiry into the matter and called for stern action against the culprits seen in the videos.
When asked about the killing of dogs, Azamullah Khan and Mobin of Gulparia said they had heard that infuriated villagers had killed some dogs in the area in the past few days.
“I too was attacked when I had gone to rescue my neighbour’s child Khalid, who was attacked by a pack of feral dogs on May 1, but saved myself by hitting them with a stick. What will people will do if an animal attacks them? We can either run away or fight back,” he said.
District magistrate Sheetal Verma said she too had come to know through social media and several animal lovers about killing of dogs. “I have asked the authorities concerned to take proper note of it and to ascertain whether videos and photographs viral on social media are genuine. They have been asked to take stern action against dog killers if the videos are found genuine,” she said.
Verma said the district administration was now asking villagers to put a collar around the neck of domestic dogs so that they could be differentiated from the killer dogs. She said it would help the combing teams to easily identify the community dogs and focus on tracking the killer pack.
The DM added that the measures which were being taken were all under the purview of existing laws. “The district administration will not tolerate cruelty towards animals. I have categorically asked my officials to capture and sterilise the dogs as suggested under law,” she said.