1,050 stray dogs poisoned to death in Karachi

KARACHI: In the wee hours of Tuesday, District Municipal Corporation (DMC) Central poisoned a significant number of stray dogs in Karachi, following reports of their rising population in the district.

According to DMC Central's elected chairman, Rehan Hashmi of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), around 1,050 stray dogs were poisoned to death. He claimed that the district administration was receiving complaints from the residents regarding the rising number of stray dogs in the area, after which they carried out the mass culling with the help of District Central deputy commissioner Capt (retd) Fariduddin Mustafa.



"The number of dogs culled is only 40% of the total stray dogs present in District Central," he claimed. He added that no such campaign had been carried out for years in the district and residents were complaining regarding the presence of such a huge number of dogs.

According to District Central information director Alamgir, the operation was carried out in four parts of the district - 257 dogs were culled in New Karachi, 244 dogs were poisoned in Gulberg, 237 in Liaquatabad and 217 dogs in North Nazimabad.



Alamgir said that 1,180 poisonous capsules were mixed in around 20 kilogrammes of gulab jamun (sweets) and were left in different areas, which were then consumed by the dogs that died later. "The corpses of the dogs were later shifted to landfill sites," he said. Earlier in August this year, a similar activity was carried out in District South, when 800 stray dogs were poisoned to death.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2016.