Public health experts note that India accounts for around 36 per cent of global rabies deaths, with children and the elderly particularly at risk – a factor that has intensified calls for stronger stray dog management.
But animal rights advocates argue that the court’s directives have led to cruelty against community dogs and could make existing problems worse.
“Why are shelters a failure? Because they go against a dog’s nature. You cannot herd multiple unknown dogs altogether. They will fight, injure each other and kill each other,” said Ambika Shukla, trustee of advocacy group People For Animals.
“Those areas will become hotspots of diseases.”
Under India’s existing animal birth control rules, dogs are supposed to be caught, sterilised, vaccinated and then returned to the same area.
Animal rights advocates say if sterilised and vaccinated dogs are permanently removed from an area, unknown strays will move in, resulting in more instances of human-dog conflict.
Activists in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai have also staged protests, alleging that municipal authorities are picking up healthy, sterilised community dogs from the streets even as the Supreme Court is yet to issue its final verdict on the matter.
Some say politically motivated complaints and misunderstandings of the court’s remarks have led to harassment of animal caregivers.
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