Dog-bites in Mumbai cause more deaths in 20 years than the combined toll in two terror attacks in the city: The 1993 serial bomb blasts and 26/11 attacks. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) made this starting disclosure before the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Since 1994, a total of 429 people , bitten by stray dogs, have succumbed to rabies and during the same period dog bites injured 13.12 lakh people . in the 1993 serial bomb blasts , a total 157 people were killed and 717 injured. The 26/11 fidayeen attack on Mumbai resulted in 164 death and injuries to 308 others. Together, the toll was 421 deaths and, 025 injured.
Appearing for the BMC, senior advocate Shkhar Naphade trained his guns on the large number of NGOs which have moved the court against culling of strays. He told a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and P C Pant that “the NGOs are active and make noise only in court. Every year a large number of persons get bitten by dogs in Mumbai. When we try to remove the dogs, the animal lovers protest and impede our work. They do nothing on the ground to eliminate the problem, Let NGOs disclose to the court what have they done at the ground level.”
