Rabid dog bites 13, SMC sleeps

GK CITY CORRESPONDENT

Srinagar, Dec 23: At least 13 persons including children were wounded by a rabid dog in the City Wednesday, officials and witnesses said.
With this, the dog bite cases registered with the City’s SMHS hospital alone, reached 4009 mark since April 2009 –exposing the failure of Srinagar Municipal Corporation to check the dog menace.
The witnesses said the trouble erupted at Batamaloo when a rabid dog attacked a passer-by wounding him critically. Bleeding profusely, he was rushed to the hospital at Karan Nagar.
After that the rabid canine, on run, managed to flee from spot and took bypass track. Till reaching Nowgam on the City suburb, he wounded 12 more on way.
The SMHS hospital alone registered 13 dog bite cases till the evening while some are believed to have opted for private medicare.
The officials at SMHS confirmed that 13 cases of rabid dog bites were administered at the hospital till afternoon.
“It was a busy day we received 13 cases,” said, Incharge Anti-Rabbies Unit, SMHS, Muhammad Yusuf.
“One of the patients was bitten on the nose,” he told Greater Kashmir.
Experts said the rabid dog could run to around 10 kilometers away from the spot after the first attack.
“That way the canine could be somewhere around Nowgam,” said a senior vet.
Pertinently, the dog menace has assumed alarming proportions in the City as there are over one lakh and growing stray dogs prowling in the summer capital.
But the SMC has not only given up the dog poisoning since past two years, it also failed to continue with the “alternative” dog sterilization program started in 2008.
As per a study, the stray dogs are feared to outnumber Srinagarites, in five years from now.
Ironically, at the time when the dog was on biting spree, some SMC officials were busy touring City to review sanitation arrangements.