Attack by a stray dog: Four-year-old bitten to death, her underage brother in critical condition

In a horrific incident, two minor siblings were attacked by a pack of stray dogs on Sunday night. One of them was killed and the other was seriously injured. The two were sleeping with their mother in a makeshift house on the roadside near the CTI bridge in Govind Nagar. The family is busy collecting garbage, police said on Monday.

According to Chotu, the children’s father, his wife Puja heard the children screaming and saw the dogs attacking and dragging the children away. To save the children, she started fighting with the dogs, after which he and others came and chased the dogs away.

Puja said she had laid her two children down next to her to sleep. During the night, the pack of dogs entered her house and dragged the children away. “I was woken up by their screams and ran after them. When I reached the accident site, the dogs were mauling the children. I tried to fend off the dogs with whatever I could find on the road. By then, my husband and others had also reached the accident site and chased the dogs away,” she said.

However, the children sustained serious injuries in the attack and were rushed to a nearby hospital where four-year-old Khushi was declared dead and two-year-old Bhola is in critical condition and is undergoing treatment, police added.

Later, the victim’s body was sent for post-mortem, which revealed that Khushi had sustained 17 injuries, including seven fatal ones between the neck and abdomen, leading to her death, said Amarnath Yadav, deputy superintendent of police, Govind Nagar.

Angry over the incident, locals began a protest against the administration that night. Bheeku, the children’s grandfather, claimed that there had been numerous complaints about stray dogs in the past, but the administration had taken no action. “We are vulnerable to dog attacks; we live in makeshift shelters. I have complained to the administration about the dog attacks, but no action has been taken,” he said.

ACP Yadav said, “The protest ended in the morning and we are in the process of writing to the government demanding compensation for the affected family.”

Local residents reported that there are eight meat and poultry stalls in the area, and the dogs eat meat, become aggressive and start attacking people. Despite repeated complaints to the police and the city administration, no action has been taken.

Mayor Pramila Pandey took action against the meat shops, reaching the CTI bridge and instructing the officials to demolish them. She said the vendors had become aggressive since they started feeding the leftover food to the dogs.

Municipal Commissioner Shiv Sharan Appa said that as per the census, there are about 100,000 stray dogs in Kanpur. “This is an unfortunate incident. We are trying to find ways to stop this scourge,” he said, adding that a court order, however, prevented them from relocating the dogs.

This is the second dog attack in Kanpur. In February, a child was injured in an attack by stray dogs while returning home from a temple.