Dog-bite victim still in state of fear

Kulwinder Sangha

Mohali, March 28

Even as a three-year-old child, who was bitten by a stray dog in Phase II here recently, has to daily undergo wound dressing for 28 days, the Mayor of the Municipal Corporation today appealed to residents to adopt stray dogs to tackle the problem.

The child, Japdeep Singh, is still in a state of great fear after a part of his lip was bitten off by a stray dog on the night of March 22 and does not want to move out of his house. He is happy in the company of his parents, but the moment they take him out of the house he starts crying and wants to avoid going out.

His father, Paramjit Singh, today said the child had first to be taken to the market on the pretext of buying him something and later taken to a doctor. He said the dressing on the wound has to be done daily for 28 days, after which a decision on performing plastic surgery would have to be taken as the entire tissue of the upper lip had been bitten away and lower lip was also injured.

Talking to The Tribune today, Mayor Kulwant Singh described the stray dog problem as a “national problem” and said it could be tackled through the active involvement of residents. Residents could adopt some stray dogs and later ensure the animals were sterilised.

Rajesh Dhiman, Commissioner, said the civic body was inviting NGOs and other organisations to tackle the problem. Earlier, arrangements with veterinary doctors for sterilising stray dogs did not yield satisfactory results. Now the civic body had decided to just provide a vehicle to the organisation selected for the purpose and pay about Rs 1,000 per animal as sterilisation charges. The entire responsibility would be of the organisation, which agreed to work on the project. It would have to ensure that 200 dogs were sterilised every month.