- Kerala is still killing stray dogs, against the law
Since British times, Municipal Corporations (equivalent of a City Council) through acts in local cities or states municipalities were allowed to capture and kill stray animals, including dogs, as a method of population and rabies control. In 2001 however with an act of Parliament the law changed.
The Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules, 2001, were enacted by Parliament under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960; and these envisage that in order to control street dog population, and to control the threat of rabies, animal birth control, and immunization under the supervision and guidance of the Animal Welfare Board of India, are the only methods that can be resorted to.
This legal position is the norm across the length and breadth of India. Indian states and municipalities across India are slowly veering around to animal birth control for controlling street dog population, even though the infrastructure and the means for the same may not fully be in place (surreptitiously, of course, dog killing and displacement is often resorted to.)
The state of Kerala however, has acquired the dubious distinction of being perhaps the only Indian State where the very polity, and all agencies and instrumentalities of state, and municipalities, and panchayats, openly facilitate, or participate in, or actively support dog killing. Read/ download/ print this document to see the legal & procedural tangle that Kerala is, and how Kerala chooses to stand alone and against all humane and lawful ways of managing dog populations.
