Faced with protests from animal rights groups, authorities in Indian Kashmir have canceled plans to poison nearly 100,000 stray dogs as part of an anti-rabies program, an official said.
Local officials instead will work with animal welfare groups and a team from the federal Environment Ministry to chart out a plan to sterilize the strays, Syed Haq Nawaz, commissioner of the Srinagar Municipal Corporation, said on Friday.
"We're not going ahead with this poisoning. Not at all," Nawaz said.
India has the world's highest rabies fatality rate and has struggled with ways to control the millions of stray dogs that live on its streets, a problem exacerbated by its rapidly growing cities and slums.
A senior health officer in Srinagar, the main city in Indian Kashmir, had said the city planned to poison its nearly 100,000 stray dogs with strychnine.
"These dogs have become a big nuisance and they are threatening humans," Riyaz Ahmad, the Srinagar city health officer, said on Thursday. About 500 dogs have already been killed.
Nawaz gave no reason for the change in plans, but angry animal activists had vowed to go to court to try to stop the slaughter, calling it illegal and inhumane.
Animal rights activists welcomed Friday's announcement.
"It's a welcome step that they have given up the idea of poisoning dogs. They should create awareness that not every dog is rabid," said Javaid Iqbal Shah, the deputy head of the Srinagar Society to Prevent Cruelty to Animals.
"The poisoning drive was not only cruel, but it was also against the law," Shah said, citing an act banning abuse of animals.
India accounts for more than 60 percent of the estimated 35,000 annual global rabies deaths, the WHO said, and stray dogs are often blamed.
In some areas, dogs form feral packs that have attacked people. However, other strays are "community pets," semi-tame animals that are cared for and fed by local residents.
Other Indian cities have also struggled to curb the problem.
India's high-tech hub of Bangalore called off a drive to slaughter strays last year following allegations that untrained workers were stoning, strangling and beating the dogs to death.
In New Delhi, a city councilor suggested shipping the country's strays to South Korea for meat.
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