Srinagar, June 9: A tragedy has hit a Batamaloo family as a 10-year-old child who had fallen into a sewer while being pursued by stray dogs has died of his injuries at Children’s Hospital, Bemina.
Ahmad Bin Javaid, a sixth-grader from the Baran Pathar neighbourhood of Batamaloo, was attacked by stray dogs on May 28 after he and several other youngsters were playing along a drain and he fell in.
Ahmad was recovered from the sewer, but he passed away at the Children’s Hospital in Bemina 13 days later.
Stray dogs have been known to follow toddlers into sewers, where they often drown after becoming trapped.
Asrar Ahmad, executive engineer of Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC), informed Greater Kashmir that the clearance necessitated not covering this drainage that flowed above ground.
According to him, the Doodh Ganga project’s construction work has diverted this runoff from the roadway.
It’s a terrible shame the youngster had to go by that route. People seldom approach from that direction. He said, “This isn’t your typical road drain.”
When asked by Greater Kashmir about the rising number of dog bite cases and deaths related to them, Dr. Saleem Khan, Head of the Department of Community Medicine at the Government Medical College (GMC), expressed concern, saying that the city of Srinagar’s stray dog population was becoming a major public health concern and that current Animal Birth Control efforts were insufficient to deal with the population’s exponential growth.
Dr. Khan said that constructing dog pounds or keeping stray dogs as pets would not work in the culture of Kashmir.
Human-dog conflicts pose a serious risk to human health and safety, hence it is imperative that all relevant parties work together to implement preventative measures. Adding that “human movement through such areas is vulnerable without the scientific disposal of municipal wastes, as haphazard disposal of household wastes and other wastes from food establishments attract packs of dogs,”
Dr. Khan has said that this tragedy emphasises the critical need of implementing comprehensive methods to deal with the problem of stray dogs in the area and secure the safety of citizens, particularly children.
