BANGALORE: "We should kill the dogs ourselves. We cannot trust the officials to help us at all," says Neelakanta, a BEML employee, even as he looks at the lifeless face of five-year-old Manjunath lying in the hearse.

The vehicle waited even as an agitated crowd of 400 staged a protest in front of the Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) factory complex around 10 a.m. on Thursday. It wants action by BEML and Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) authorities to eradicate street dogs.

Manjunath was mauled to death by a pack of 15 dogs at 6.30 p.m. on Wednesday at BEML quarters in C.V. Raman Nagar. "This is not the first time such an incident has taken place. Another child was bitten about five months ago," says Vijay Kumar, a neighbour.

When contacted, the father of the other child was unwilling to speak about it. He, however, said: "My child was a year old when the dogs attacked him. He fell and the dogs bit him on his back."

BEML's quarters is a protected area of the Ministry of Defence and civic amenities such as garbage collection, controlling street dogs and streetlights is the responsibility of the BEML authorities.

"We pay the BEML authorities maintenance fees of Rs. 220 every month but they refuse to even take our calls when we want to complain about the problems we face in our layout," says Sree Lakshmi, a resident.

"When we request the BBMP workers to catch street dogs, they demand bribe from us. They ask us to find the dogs and then call them," she said.

The road leading to the BEML quarters has heaps of garbage on large tracts of vacant lands.

The area where Manju, as he was lovingly called, was attacked, also has garbage strewn all over.

Just as in the case of eight-year-old Sridevi, who was killed by a pack of dogs at Chandra Layout, residents sought to blame the meat shops in surrounding areas such as Annasandrapalya, G.M. Palya, Malleshpalya and Jagadishnagar.

"Meat shop owners come and dump waste at night and it is an easy place for dogs to enter," says Chandrappa.

An official at BEML office, who did not want to be named, said BEML had been trying to put up a boundary wall for the past four years.

"But local politicians have been opposing it. The matter is pending with the BBMP," he said.

While the blame game continues, parents are a frightened lot. "I am scared to let my children out to play. But how long can I restrain them?" says a worried-looking Seethalakshmi.

Audit report

According to BBMP Commissioner K. Jairaj, the city has 56,000 street dogs.

While admitting that the Animal Birth Control programme has not been effective, he said the audit of the programme would be ready by March 31.

Based on the audit report, the BBMP would take a decision on extending the programme to the new areas in the palike.

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