BAHAWALNAGAR: People living around Lorry Adda area are in panic after a stray dog bit seven pedestrians including women and children at the main market on Tuesday night.

       The Municipal Committee officials failed to catch the dog by Wednesday evening. They also were unable to eliminate the packs of stray dogs from the city and its surroundings because of unavailability of poison.

       Citizens said a stray dog bit Arshad Ahmad, 12, Mehvish, 16, Maryam, 17, Fouzia, 19, Shahzad, 19, Muhammad Habib, 20, and Muhammad Alam, 30, at the main market of Minchinabad. The injured were shifted to the THQ hospital on a self-help basis.

       They said some people tried to catch the dog but in vain. Officials of the Municipal Committee, they said, had failed to eliminate the packs of dogs and were instead making announcements through mosques asking people to remain indoors and save themselves from stray dogs.

       The residents alleged that packs of stray dogs bit many people earlier but the MC officials remained indifferent to public nuisance.

       Municipal Committee Chief Officer Rashid Ghaznavi was not available for comment. However, an official of the MC Minchinabad, while requesting anonymity, told Dawn that the MC as well as the health department had no poison available to kill the stray dogs.

       The official said that despite strict government instructions, no campaign to eradicate stray dogs was launched the whole year through.

       THQ Medical Superintendent Dr Hasnain Shah said the seven affected people were vaccinated soon after they were brought to the hospital.

       He said it was the duty of the deputy district health officer or the MC office to arrange poison or to take any other steps to kill stray dogs.

       Minchinabad Assistant Commissioner Javed Ahmad Cheema said they had acquired poison from the DHQ hospital on an emergency basis and the drive to eliminate the stray dogs had been launched.

       Published in Dawn, December 30th, 2021