THIS refers to the report ‘Dog culling continues in Karachi as delays hit making of byelaws’ (Feb 8). I was really sad about the culling of dogs in Clifton and DHA by shooting and felt even more depressed when a little later I went for my routine walk at the Aunty Park where the caretakers told me that they had found six or seven dead dogs when they came to work that morning.

Apparently, they were given poisonous meat the preceding night by the authorities. Not only that, one saw many dead crows in the park who had fed on the flesh of the dead dogs.

The Sindh government was in the process of giving them rabies vaccine and neutering them so that their population may decrease. Another way suggested was that if garbage dumps were not open and overflowing, it would help in decreasing the canine population.

Are we going backwards in terms of animal rights? There are animal rights activists active in the field. How can the authorities allow such a barbaric act? According to the report, one of the dogs had been shot multiple times. Have we lost all compassion for the poor animals?

The workers in the park told me that they had dumped the bodies of the dead dogs near the garbage. I wondered why couldn’t the bodies be buried in the ground. It felt sickening just listening to this. Thank God, I was not there when the park had dogs’ bodies scattered around.

Dr Mumtaz Lakhani
Karachi

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2021