Bhubaneswar, Feb 23 (PTI) Days after a four-year-old boy was mauled to death by stray dogs in Hyderabad, the Odisha government on Thursday ordered all Chief District Veterinary Officers (CDVO) to be vigilant and remove such canines from the streets in the state.

Animal Resources Development Minister Ranendra Pratap Swain said the instruction was sent after he saw a video of the shocking Hyderabad incident that went viral.

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“I saw that video – a four-year-old child is being mauled by stray dogs in Hyderabad. There are stray dogs everywhere in our state also. So I issued a note to all CDVOs and my department that they should be on their toes. They should be vigilant that such an incident doesn't occur in Odisha,” Swain told PTI.

The boy was attacked in Hyderabad's Amberpet area on Sunday though a video of it surfaced on Tuesday.

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An officer of the Animal Resources Development department said they are looking into the issue.

Odisha-based animal activist Jiban Das claimed that the state has the second highest number of stray dogs in the country after Uttar Pradesh and this shows the “failure” of the Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme in Odisha.

“As the government is not able to implement the ABC programme, the population of stray dogs is increasing day by day and there is a rise in man-animal conflict,” Das said.

Stray dogs should be rehabilitated properly as they also have the freedom to live, he said.

According to census done by the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, the number of stray dogs in Odisha was 8.62 lakh in 2012, it was 17.34 lakh in 2019, a rise of almost 50 per cent, Das said.

Balasore BJD MLA Swarup Kumar Das told PTI that the minister directed officials to do the needful to check the menace of stray dogs, but people should also be careful.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)