In yet another display of human greed, callousness and cruelty the Old Students Welfare Association of Pala-based St Thomas College in Kottayam have issued a statement that offer gold coins to the body that can kill the most street dogs. The Kerala-based college is one of many institutes enraged over the recent spate of attacks, the most recent being the mauling of a 90-year old man.
Earlier the government had attempted to control the rising number of strays by subsidising the price of air guns in the hope that people would take it upon themselves to cull the population. The last day of this new ‘project’ will be November 30 which is when the ‘results’ will be out and the ‘winner’ declared. The Top 10 Panchayat presidents, under whose jurisdiction, the most number of dogs have been eradicated will be eligible for the prize money.
But don’t be fooled by the simplicity because there are still some rules, and it is a contest after all. “Even though dog killings were organized in some panchayats earlier, they were not conducted in a wide scale. So, we won’t consider those,”  Alumni secretary James Pambaykkal told News Minute.

This horrific act is already underway but they claim they are left with no other choice. Thanks to corruption and poor implementation of government programs the number of attacks on people of all ages is always rising. The authorities are turning a blind eye to this menace “All the funds being allotted for sterilization of stray dogs directly lands up in these officials’ pockets,” James claims.
So while this project may stun you with its cruelty there appears to be a method to this madness. It’s a heartless move on the part of the association and no contest based on accumulating lives can be deemed sane, but perhaps it’s a last resort. We wish they would find a more peaceful method to control the stray population but in the meantime we wonder what sort of government would for so long ignore a problem that was inciting fear of this magnitude and pushing its citizens to the very edge of reason.

Featured Image Courtesy DogExpress