India’s top court ordered authorities in the capital Delhi and its suburbs on Monday to remove all stray dogs, following a rise in rabies cases, particularly among children.
India’s Supreme Court took up the case after several reports in local media of stray dogs biting children in Delhi, with some turning fatal.
On Monday, news outlet Live Law reported that the court told authorities in Delhi to pick up stray dogs from across the city, sterilise and vaccinate them and move them to dog shelters.
The court ordered officials to set up multiple shelters across Delhi.
These shelters need to be capable holding at least 5,000 dogs and having sterilisation and vaccination facilities, as well as being equipped with CCTV facilities to make sure strays don’t escape.
The court also ruled that Delhi needs to set up a hotline for citizens to report dog bites and rabies cases.
‘Infants and young children, should not at any cost, fall prey to rabies. The action should inspire confidence that they can move freely without fear of being bitten by stray dogs. No sentiment should be involved,’ the court said, according to Live Law website.
Local media reports suggest that Delhi alone has 1 million stray dogs, though this number could not be independently verified.
The city saw more than 35,000 animal bites, which largely came from dogs, in the first six months of this year alone.
Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, for the Delhi government, urged for strong intervention as ‘sterilisation only prevents the increase in their population, but it does not take away the power of the dogs to give rabies,’ the website reported.
However, the move has drawn criticism from conservationists over its implementation.
‘Where are the shelters to house thousands of dogs?’ conservation biologist Bahar Dutt said in a post on X, calling the top court’s order an ‘impractical unscientific move’.
‘We need mass vaccination & mass sterilization — the only humane, proven ways to reduce conflicts,’ Vidit Sharma, founder of animal welfare organization Save A Stray, said on X.
Nishima Bhagat, who attended a candlelight march in the centre of the city on Monday night to protest against the court ruling, told the Guardian: ‘We are walking in solidarity to show that there are people for the voiceless. They [the dogs] cannot speak for themselves.
‘They cannot be put into the pounds. We cannot uproot them from the place where they live.’
Mini Aravindan, a senior official at Peta India, said: “It’s infeasible to build and staff enough shelters for hundreds of thousands of dogs” and the cost would be huge.
The Indian government said in April that nearly 430,000 cases of dog bites had been reported across the country in January, compared with 3.7 million cases all through 2024.
India has 52.5 million stray dogs, according to a State of Pet Homelessness survey by Mars Petcare, while 8 million homeless dogs are in shelters.
