A four-year-old boy was mauled to death by a pack of stray dogs in Hyderabad on Sunday afternoon, police said on Tuesday, in a distressing incident that prompted civic authorities to review the menace of stray dogs in the city.
Gory visuals of the incident, captured on closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras and which surfaced on Tuesday morning, showed the boy, later identified as Pradeep, walking near an automobile service centre in Amberpet area when he was surrounded and brutally attacked by three stray dogs.
Amberpet inspector of police H Prabhakar said an inquiry revealed that Pradeep and his six-year-old sister Meghana, on Sunday had accompanied their father, Gangadhar, to the automobile service centre where he works as a watchman.
While Meghana waited inside a cabin near the entrance, Pradeep went inside the service centre along with his father. “The boy was playing in an open area of the service centre when Gangadhar went to another part of the service centre with a colleague for a small task,” the inspector said.
When the boy came out in search of his sister, he was surrounded by three stray dogs, Prabhakar said. As the dogs started barking at him, he tried to escape but fell down. The dogs pulled him from all sides and eventually dragged him to a corner of the road, Prabhakar added.
“The dogs pounced on him and pulled his limbs in different directions, resulting in serious injuries,” the inspector said, adding that no one was around in the area at the time of the incident since it was a Sunday.
Meanwhile, the boy’s sister came out of the cabin near the entrance and saw him being attacked. She rushed inside to inform her father.
“By the time Gangadhar and his colleagues arrived at the spot and chased the dogs away, the boy fell unconscious. He had already suffered grievous injuries,” the inspector said. He was rushed to a local private hospital where doctors declared him dead.
Police said the family of the deceased left for Nizamabad on Sunday evening. “No case has been registered as we haven’t received any complaint from the father. The case came to light after the videos surfaced on Tuesday,” the inspector said.
Gangadhar, who hails from Indalwai village in Nizamabad district, had migrated to Hyderabad with his wife, Janapriya, and children for work two years ago. The children were studying in an Anganwadi school at Erukalabasti in Amberpet.
Before leaving for Nizamabad on Sunday evening, he told local news channels: “I brought my children to the workshop for the first time as it was a Sunday. I have no clue as to what exactly happened and I never expected the dogs would kill my son this way.”
On Tuesday, Telangana municipal administration minister K T Rama Rao expressed shock over the incident and assured assistance to the boy’s family.
“It is a very unfortunate incident. We shall extend all possible assistance to the family. Instructions have also been issued to the municipal authorities to prevent recurrence of such incidents,” he told reporters.
Hyderabad mayor G Vijayalakshmi held a review meeting on the dog menace in the city. “I have also ordered an inquiry into the incident,” she said.
She said there is no negligence on the part of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and added the civic body is taking all precautions.
Asked about the reasons for the dogs to attack the child, she said it was not exactly clear but preliminary information suggested an elderly woman had been regularly feeding meat to four dogs in the area.
“She (the elderly woman) was not to be seen there for the past two days. The dogs got used to (eating) meat. It was suspected that the dogs might have been hungry and apparently due to hunger or some other reason they got ferocious and attacked the boy,” she was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
A group of Aam Aadmi Party workers held a brief protest outside GHMC, demanding a solution to the stray dog menace.
Alokparna Sengupta, convener of Humane Society International (India), stressed on the need for sterilisation to control the population of stray. “I would urge people across the state to be responsible community caretakers and see that stray dogs are sterilised so the population is managed,” she said.
