250 Stray Dogs, Puppies "Culled With Lethal Injections"

Vijayawada: An estimated 250 stray dogs including puppies have been brutally killed allegedly by administering lethal injections in violation of Supreme Court orders.

They were buried in three pits near the Polavaram Right Main canal at Velagaleru village of G Konduru mandal in NTR district on Saturday.

In a recent interim order, the Supreme Court has called for protection of stray dogs from public institutions, shifting them to dog shelters, administering them anti-rabies vaccine and taking up animal birth control steps to control the stray dogs menace.

Despite this, the villagers reportedly hired contract killers to cull the stray dogs mercilessly after administering them lethal injections. A villager noticed the third open pit while two pits were covered with mud after culling and burying the dogs. There, around 40 carcasses of stray dogs including puppies could be seen.

When he alerted the Kakinada based animal rescue organisation member Pasumarthi Eswari, she reached the spot and noticed the pits. She raised an alarm.

Based on her preliminary inquiry, gram panchayat tractors with invisible registration numbers were used to carry the unconscious stray dogs and dump them in the pits.

High drama unfolded near the pits when the animal rights activist and a few villagers arrived at the spot and raised a hue and cry over the indiscriminate killing of dogs. Several of the about 4,500 villagers argued that they were suffering a lot from these strays.

As the situation was going out of control, the woman activist called up NTR district collector G Lakshmi Sha, seeking his intervention. He promised necessary action and advised her to stay put at a safe place.

She lodged a complaint on the issue at the G Konduru police station on Sunday morning, but no case has been registered. She stated in a complaint that the indiscriminate culling of stray dogs allegedly by the gram panchayat officials, by hiring contract dog killers, was a blatant violation of rules.

Eswari said, "Indiscriminate culling of nearly 250 stray dogs and puppies reportedly with legal injections was horrible. Rather than the panchayat using its fund for killing stray dogs, they can use it instead for providing shelter and taking up vaccination so as to control the street dog population.”

Guntur-based animal rights activist Jagu Suresh said, “Burying carcasses of such a large number of stray dogs near the Polavaram Right Main Canal may even pollute the Godavari water that is being used for drinking and cultivation purposes.”