LAHORE, July 14: The City District Government has failed to check the growth of stray dogs in the city.
Though it claims of exterminating over 154,000 dogs during the last six years, they have multiplied in the provincial metropolis because of the limited funds allocated for the purpose. The strength of the dog killing squads has not been increased for the last 35 years.
Stray dogs can be seen moving about in all parts of the provincial metropolis in search of food, particularly around the roadside restaurants. They lurk in the streets at night and pose threat to the lone wayfarers. A large number of stray dogs are seen lurking in graveyards, Miani Sahib in particular.
The ex-Metropolitan Corporation of Lahore and the CDG squads are reported to have killed around 19,000 dogs during 1997 and 38,911 during 1998. At least 28,185 dogs were exterminated during 1999 and 22,482 during the year 2000. Another 26,188 dogs were killed during 2001 and 8,261 during 2002, according to the official record.
The dogs are not only poisoned but also shot dead by the squads. The carcasses of the dogs are dumped mostly in the CDG dumping grounds at Mahmud Booti seemingly without polluting the environment.
The CDG squads could not maintain its reported tempo of extermination of stray dogs last year due to delay in purchase of poison and cartridges for the purpose. It has now started a campaign for killing the dogs from July after acquisition of 25,000 cartridges and 10 kgs of poison and claims to have killed nearly 700 dogs as of now.
Campaign incharge Gulzar Khwaja said that four teams each comprising six men, including a gunman, were being dispatched from the Jinnah Hall in Solid Waste Management trucks every evening for poisoning and shooting the stray dogs. Every team returned after killing 15 to 20 dogs.
He said that dog killers had to collect bones as well because the CDG did not provide them funds for the purchase of meat for administering poison. The teams started their work by collecting bones from some city restaurants, he said.