KARACHI, April 21: Growing number of pye-dogs in all parts of the city are posing serious threat to people, particularly children.

Despite so many reports of dog-bite cases from different localities, the city government has failed to respond and to launch an effective drive to check the menace of stray dogs.

The gravity of the situation can be gauged from an incident in which a 10- year old girl was bitten by a pye-dog when she was taking her one-and-a-half- year old cousin to show ducks in front of her house in Journalists Society, Block 4-A, Gulshan-i-Iqbal.

When the victim baby was taken to Patel Charitable Hospital in the neighbourhood, the attending doctors told the family that it was the fourth case in 24 hours reported from the locality.

The doctors said anti-rabies injections were quite expensive and cost Rs600 an injection. One dog-bite case required six injections which cost Rs3,600, which was more than a month’s salary of an average worker.

They said if our hospital has received four cases of dog-bite, other hospitals in the city should also be getting such cases besides the government hospitals.

The Sindh Ombudsman, Justice Haziq-ul-Khairi, taking suo-motu notice, had made it mandatory on the then commissioner Karachi and the KMC health department officials to report him every month about the outcome of a drive against pye-dogs. But since the city government and Town and Taluka councils came into being, the authorities concerned have failed to take notice of the menace, leaving people in most areas at the mercy of stray dogs.

The situation is similar in most parts of the city. Large number of stray dogs can been seen in North Karachi, New Karachi, Malir, Malir Extension, Surjani Town, many blocks of Federal B-Area, Orangi Town, Baldia Town, North Nazimabad and Landhi-Korangi.

A jogger from Block-7 in Gulistan-e-Jauhar said be it morning or night he and other people who undertook brisk walk along roads and streets were haunted now and then as dogs kept following them.

Stray dogs are also posing serious danger in several areas of Malir, especially in Malir Extension Colony, Khokhrapar, Lines Area, PECHS, etc. Cases of dog-bite have been occurring in the area. The increasing number of stray dogs are more dangerous at night when there are power breakdowns and losdshedding.

Residents have regularly been drawing the attention of the authorities concerned to the menace, but all their appeals have so far fallen on deaf ears. The danger posed by stray dogs does not need to be emphasized, residents say.