NO MERCY: Carcasses of stray dogs lying in a heap at one of the BBMP sites in Bangalore on Thursday. — Photo: Sampath Kumar G.P.

BANGALORE: It may not be a surprise to learn that most of the stray dogs caught by the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) these days are put to sleep. But what is happening to the carcasses? They are being clandestinely loaded on to garbage lorries and dumped on the city's outskirts along with solid waste.

BBMP officials, unable to accommodate hundreds of stray canines rounded up during the ongoing drive, are exterminating the dogs and dumping their carcasses along with garbage.

According to sources at the dog pounds, the canines are either electrocuted or injected with poison. This is happening especially in the BBMP's East Zone. The method of disposal is posing a health hazard to villages near the dumping yards. The villagers, who have always complained about the unbearable stench of the garbage dumped there, are now protesting.

With private garbage contractors refusing to transport the carcasses, the civic body is using its own garbage lorries for the purpose. A team from The Hindu was prevented on Thursday from entering the dog pound behind the BBMP's housing quarters for economically weaker sections in Koramangala.

On noticing that dogs from the pound were being taken to the BBMP's dysfunctional hot-mix plant situated across the road, the team sneaked into the premises and found heaps of dog carcasses there. The carcasses were pushed into large plastic sacks and loaded on to closed garbage lorries.

According to one of the lorry drivers, the carcasses are put into trucks half laden with garbage. They are then covered with garbage from another truck. "This will hide the carcasses even after the waste is unloaded in the yards," the driver said. He refused to reveal the dumping destination.

Residents of Haalanayakanahalli and Churasandra on Sarjapur Road and Garudacharpalya near Budigere Cross on Hoskote Road, who noticed the carcasses being unloaded with the waste, stopped four trucks from doing that.

H.S. Anil Kumar, a resident of Haalnayakanahalli, said he noticed that 15 carcasses were dumped in a quarry pit behind Mata Amritanandamayi College on Sarjapur Road on Wednesday.

"We immediately stopped the lorry and made the workers bury the dogs in another pit," he told The Hindu .

R. Gajendra and S. Lokesh from Churasandra said they stopped four lorries on Thursday.

The BBMP's Chief Health Officer, L.T. Gayatri Devi, refuted the charge that dogs were being killed. But Mala Ramchandra, Health Officer, East Zone, said dogs were being culled after veterinary doctors examined them.

Asked whether these dogs were being disposed of along with garbage, she said, "We are deep-burying the culled ones. But I do not know where it is being done."

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