In an extremely inhumane incident, party members of the youth wing of Kerala Congress (M) party carried out a protest march against the stray dog menace in the state by killing and hanging dogs by their legs on a pole on Monday. The protesters said that they had killed the dogs to mark their protest against incidents of dog bites across the state. The activists left the dead dogs outside the post office that faces offices of the municipal body. After their march, they left the dead dogs in a pile outside the post office facing the offices of the municipal body. “We have killed these dogs. And it’s a warning that this will continue if the central and the state government do not control the stray dog menace,” Saji Manjakadambil, who was heading the protest told NDTV.
The protest appeared to be an open challenge to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who had earlier through his Facebook page, said that there won’t be any illegal killing of stray dogs permitted in Kerala. But a police case was yet to be registered against those who had said they had killed the dogs. An increasing number of incidents of attacks on people by stray dogs have fanned outrage among large sections of the population in Kerala, fanning it into a political issue. After a 65-year-old woman died in Thiruvananthapuram last month, the government said it will cull violent dogs, rejecting opposition by Union Minister Maneka Gandhi and animal lovers.
Chief Minister Vijayan also called an emergency meeting of all department heads to address the public fears over the attacks.