A stray dog on the prowl in Legislators’ Home (LH) here has sent chills down the spine of lawmakers. The canine has bitten 17 people in a week, and most of the victims have been unsuspecting visitors to the LH.
The issue echoed in the legislative council on Tuesday. Janata Dal(S) member KT Srikante Gowda brought it to the notice of the house. “On Monday, the dog bit Amrit Sharma, who had come to meet me from Kollegal taluk in Chamarajnagar district, in the leg,” he said. MLAs and MLCs were spending every minute of their stay in the LH in fear of the dog, he said.
Srikante Gowda said he was scared to walk in the corridors of the LH but had to do so to reach the adjacent Vidhana Soudha to attend the session. He demanded that the government take immediate action to address the canine problem. “The dog left a woman badly injured a few days ago,” he said.He said that repeated complaints to the LH security had not yielded any result.
“I had to bear the medical expenses of some of the victims, including the one who was bitten on Monday,” Srikante Gowda said.
In his reply, medical education minister Ramachandra Gowda said the government would direct the LH officers concerned to take necessary action. Srikante Gowda urged the government to take the matter seriously as the dog was unpredictable and could also be rabid.
During a visit to the LH later for a reality check, DNA spoke to a house-keeping employee, who said that the dog was usually found resting at a spot near the old building annexure on the campus.
“We avoid the area whenever the dog is around. It has bitten many people,” she said. “Nobody wants to take the risk now. Only those who don’t know about the canine go near the area and end up getting attacked.”
A minister, who stays in the LH and did not wish to be named, said if the situation in the LH was like this, one could imagine the plight of the common man elsewhere in the city where thousands of stray dogs were on the loose.
Failing to spot the dog even after an hour’s search on the LH
campus, this correspondent met a guard at the gate and asked about the dog. The guard pointed to a brown dog lying under a tree nearby. “This is the culprit. It is asleep now. But there is no guarantee that it would not jump on anyone who walks past it,” he said.
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