Dhaka South City Corporation officials have admitted that relocating the stray dogs from the capital offers no solution as anger grows among animal rights activists, who say doing so would be a breach of law.
The animal lovers recommend strengthening sterilisation programme and vaccination for rabies as the solution, reports bdnews24.com.
The city corporation had recently decided to remove 30,000 dogs from the streets after receiving complaints of trouble from citizens, said its spokesperson Abu Naser.
But Shafiqul Islam, the chief veterinary officer of the city corporation, said they have not arrived at a decision on the issue.
“The mayor [Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh] has said the dogs should be removed for the citizens’ sake, but I told him that it will not be a solution. Because the dogs will return to their places,” he said.
Discussions on the problem were under way while the officials finalised a decision to remove dogs from Nagar Bhaban, Ramna and Dhanmondi areas.
He believes the efforts would not yield results.
“When we had done such things in the past, the dogs returned to their previous places,” Shafiqul pointed out.
There is no official data on how many dogs are there in Dhaka. A 2016 survey put the number at 37,000, but city corporation officials said the number has reached 150,000.
“These dogs stay with us. We share our breads and biscuits with them. They never bite us. How will we live without them?” asked ‘Shakib’, a boy who sells flowers on the street.
After the city corporation’s plan was revealed, animal welfare groups, rights activists and animal lovers took to social media to register their protest.
Relocating the dogs will mean relocating the problems from one place to another, said Sourav Shamim, the chairman of Care for Paws. There will be ecological problems as well, he said.
Rakibul Haq Emil, the president of People for Animal Welfare Foundation, said the Animal Welfare Act 2019 prohibits annihilation or relocation of stray animals.
He said the government has vaccinated 70 per cent of the dogs against rabies in the first round of a health ministry project with the aim to eradicate the disease within 2022.
“The vaccination has stopped due to the coronavirus pandemic. If the dogs are relocated without vaccination, the risk of rabies infection in Dhaka South will rise. Because other dogs will occupy the areas if the old ones are relocated,” Emil said.
A sterilisation project was halted after the death of Azmat Ali, DSCC’s chief veterinary officer.
“If they can relocate dogs, why can’t they sterilise them? They will spend the money somehow. What they need is veterinary services,” Emil said, promising support for sterilisation of the dogs if the city corporation relaunches the programme.
