Pune: A five-year-old boy was critically injured after being attacked by a pack of stray dogs in Chakan in Pune district in Maharashtra.
In a shocking video (the incident was captured by a nearby CCTV camera), the young boy can be seen standing by the side of a partly-flooded dirt road and waving away at a black dog. The boy does not move toward the dog and does not appear to make any threatening gesture.
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Sat 21 Dec. 2024
Seconds later a second dog sprints forward from the boy’s right hand side. The dog attacks the boy before he can run away. The CCTV feed captures the young boy’s scream as the dog attacks.
As soon as the boy is thrown to the ground at least half-a-dozen other dogs converge, barking and surrounding the boy, who continues screaming. The terrified boy is soon pinned on the ground and the dogs circle around, even seeming to jump on the young child.
His screams and the dogs’ barking bring a woman racing out of a nearby house. She throws a few stones at the dogs but they continue their attack, seeming to drag the child into nearby bushes. Then two men appear on the scene and rush at the dogs, who then race away.
Notably, in Nagpur, a three-year-old boy, Vansh Shahane, was left bleeding, dismembered and motionless on May 23, 2024 in Ganesh Nagar area of Mouda in the outskirts after a rogue pack of stray dogs pinned him, gnawed his legs and hands down to the bone and ripped apart his jugular vein.
The dogs, who encircled Vansh were sinking their teeth on his body and neck, when the passerby, a neighbour, intervened but by the time help arrived, the boy was hardly breathing. His mother, Mansi, who was cooking, rushed out. Unable to bear the sight of his bleeding son, she rushed home to awaken her sleeping husband, Ankush, before passing out from shock.
Vansh was breathing feebly when taken to hospital. The dogs had chewed his neck and blood was profusely oozing. Doctors put Vansh on a ventilator, but declared him dead within 10 minutes.
These incidents add to a growing number of similar attacks across India in recent months. According to data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, dog bite incidents have surged by 26.5% year-on-year, rising from 2.18 million cases in 2022 to 2.75 million in 2023. The ministry, in its report to the Rajya Sabha, highlighted the alarming rise in stray dog bites across the country.
