Animal welfare activists have been left outraged after 100 dogs were mass murdered in another poisoning incident targeting strays.
The dogs were allegedly poisoned to death in Yacharam village, part of the Rangareddy district about 50km from Hyderabad in India.
This incident follows shocking reports of 500 dogs being slaughtered in three districts across Telangana just two weeks prior.
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According to a complaint made by Mudavath Preethi, an activist from the Stray Animal Foundation of India, the killings occurred on January 19.
Although India has a colossal stray dog problem – with estimates of up to 60 million across the country – culling dogs in this fashion is illegal.
The proper method to address the issue is to sterilise the existing population.
Local police have since registered a case against three people, but are yet to retrieve the dogs’ bodies which are believed to be buried just outside the village.
One of those allegedly involved is the village’s sarpanch (head of council), according to the Times of India.
Just like the killings in Telangana, it is believed they were carried out by professionals, with the sarpanch’s alleged permission.
Nandeshwar Reddy, of the Yacharam police station, said the case is being properly investigated.
“We are investigating the case thoroughly. Efforts are also underway to track down where the dog carcasses have been buried,” Mr Reddy said.
Animal rights activists believe the dogs were likely killed using lethal injections administered by professional “dog killers”.
Ms Preethi said the alarm was raised after descriptions from different village officials did not line up.
“During a phone conversation with animal welfare activist Deepike Pingali, a ward member claimed that the dogs were relocated,” the complaint said.
“Later, however, when another activist, Adulapuram Goutham, spoke to the same ward member, he said that the dogs were administered anaesthesia injections.
“Subsequent enquiries with villagers revealed that the dogs were in fact injected with poisonous substances, leading to their death.”
Warning: The below Instagram post contains distressing footage
The broader stray dog problem in India is being addressed by the court system, alongside existing animal cruelty laws.
After several children were mauled by stray dogs, India’s Supreme Court ordered the removal of all stray dogs in New Delhi and its suburban cities, Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram and Faridabad on August 11.
It said authorities must start collecting dogs from these areas and relocating them to shelters with the condition that the animals would not be released into public spaces again.
The ruling was widely criticised for being impossible for local governments to carry out due to having limited infrastructure to house the dogs.
Advocates also raised concerns that the ruling would fuel more acts of cruelty toward dogs.
When the case went before the court again, a second ruling modified the earlier order, instead calling for all dogs within the area to be sterilised, dewormed and vaccinated before being released into the same place they were collected from.
The release rule does not apply to dogs with rabies.
Rough estimates indicate India has about 60 million stray dogs, with about one million of these living in New Delhi alone.
India accounts for more than a third of global rabies deaths.
Though there does not appear to be specific stray dog data available for Yacharam village, nearby Hyderabad was most recently estimated to have 390,000.
Despite 80 per cent of stray dogs being sterilised in Hyderabad, giving the city the strongest sterilisation rate in all Indian metropolitan cities, the population is still continuing to increase.
Reports indicate that although there are dedicated teams of dog catchers who administer vaccinations and sterilise stray dogs, the city has a lack of shelters and rehabilitation centres.
It is suspected many villages are facing the same struggle, which is leading to calls being made by officials to execute the dogs instead.
Activists continue to insist that this does not actually help the population problem, which they say can only be effectively controlled by implementing birth control rules.
