Dinesh Kamath's news 'Animal activists versus harassed residents' that was published in Newsband

Animal activists versus harassed residents

By Dinesh Kamath

NAVI MUMBAI: Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) wants to control the growing population of stray dogs in the city but some animal activists are not cooperating with the corporation and instead are raising their voices against such campaigns which NMMC threatens to carry out.

But there are quite many residents of the city who feel harassed by these dogs on the roads. These pariahs are found to be dangerous especially during night time when the crowd on the streets is less and when some few residents are returning home from place of work. Even the riders of two wheelers are chased by these dogs. These residents have been applying pressure on the corporation to do something drastic to stop once and for all the menace that these dogs create. As per high court guidelines, dogs must be sterilized. There is a kennel near Turbhe where dogs are brought for sterilization. But the population of dogs in the city is so great in number that this sterilization centre is not found to be enough to do total justice to those harassed city residents.

The civic body did come up with the idea of using a shut-down hospital at Ghansoli as dog-sterilizing centre. But the residents around that place prevented NMMC to use that particular spot for sterilizing dogs owing to some reasons.

NMMC is now unable to decide as to what step it should take next. The NMMC officials are in search of another spot ideal for coming up with a sterilizing centre there. But the animal activists are protesting against NMMC officials’ idea about constructing dog sterilizing centres.

Thus it is a war between the residents who are harassed by the dogs and the animal activists who are not prepared to tolerate any action taken against these animals. NMMC officials find it extremely difficult to take any concrete action in this direction owing to the pressures they face from both the sides.