Srinagar tackles surging dog bites with mass sterilization program

Srinagar is in the grip of a stray dog crisis that has grown so acute the city's municipal authorities have brought in an outside agency from Rajasthan to sterilize the animals en masse. The decision reflects a problem that has spiraled beyond the capacity of local resources to manage: more than 6,200 dog bite cases arrived at just one of the city's four major hospitals over a ten-month period, with the anti-rabies center there now treating twenty to thirty patients daily. The trend has been climbing steadily for a decade, interrupted only briefly by COVID-19 lockdowns.

The scale of the canine population itself remains uncertain. The last official census, conducted in 2011, counted more than 90,000 dogs in a city of 1.2 million people. Experts suspect the number has doubled in the twelve years since. No one knows for sure—the municipal corporation has commissioned a fresh count, but the results are still pending. What is clear is that the dogs have become a fixture of daily life in ways that have shifted who is vulnerable. Firdous Ahmad, a resident of Tankipora, described how his daughter was chased by strays the previous evening. He noted that attacks once targeted mainly children and the elderly; now young adults are being bitten too. The problem extends beyond Srinagar itself. In Pampore, a town in Pulwama district, Shabir Malik's son was attacked within minutes of leaving his house and returned home covered in blood. The boy required referral to Srinagar for treatment, as the local hospital lacked the capacity to handle the severity of his injuries.

The municipal corporation's response centers on the Animal Birth Control program, which Dr. Tawheed Najar oversees. Sterilization has become the only viable option after traditional methods like poisoning were outlawed. The biology of the problem is straightforward: dogs reproduce twice yearly, with litters of six to eight pups each. The city's non-vegetarian diet and abundant garbage provide reliable food sources that sustain the population. The corporation previously operated a single sterilization center capable of performing five to ten surgeries daily—a rate that cannot keep pace with the breeding cycle. Two additional centers are now being established to expand capacity.

Najar outlined the scale of the undertaking required. To meaningfully reduce the dog population, authorities must sterilize seventy percent of the animals over two to three years of continuous effort. The Rajasthan agency has been contracted to help achieve this target. The corporation is also conducting the census to establish a baseline—without knowing the actual population, planning becomes guesswork. The work is urgent. Dr. Abdul Hamid, head of the anti-rabies center at SMHS hospital, confirmed the decade-long upward trajectory in bite cases and emphasized that the trend continues to worsen year after year.

For residents, the crisis has become a source of genuine fear. Malik spoke of the anxiety that grips him when his children leave the house, uncertain whether they will return unharmed. The attacks are not isolated incidents but a pattern woven into the fabric of moving through the city. The sterilization program represents an acknowledgment that the problem cannot be ignored or managed at its current scale. Whether the expanded capacity and outside expertise will be sufficient remains to be seen—success depends on sustained effort over years, not months, and on maintaining the political and financial commitment required to sterilize such a vast population.