Generally, people are least concerned about the stray dogs. They want to get rid of them by any means. But the budding engineers at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and the professors are an exception to this attitude. They are very much concerned about the welfare and safety of the stray dogs in the campus.
They have set up an animal welfare cell at the Institute with consent of the IIT-K authorities. The cell would look after the proper rehabilitation of the stray dogs and would also check their nuisance.
The formation of the welfare cell is the outcome of an incident that took place last year in the campus. The Institute authorities had decided to remove the stray dogs from the campus. The dog catching squad was put into service. People in the dog catching squad trapped a stray dog used to live in the gallery of a boys’ hostel. They mercilessly dragged the dog from the gallery and threw it in the van parked outside the hostel gate. They took away the dog to an unknown destination and left it there.
In the evening when one of the students came and found the dog was missing he enquired about the dog. The security men narrated him the whole story. The student was pained to hear it and demanded that the dog should be brought back as it was not a threat to them.
He even lodged a police complaint of the missing dog but the dog could not be traced.
The incident upset other students also. They held a meeting and asked the authorities of the institute not to remove the stray dogs from the campus. They also decided to raise funds for running an open mess for the stray dogs. Several professors also joined the scheme of open mess for the dogs. The system continued.
This year the students and the professors asked the IIT administration to create a “welfare cell” for the stray dogs. They would raise funds to run the cell and feeding the stray dogs. The dogs would not be removed from the campus till they proved to be harmful, they decided.
The IIT administration accepted the proposal and first of its welfare cell was created to look after the stray dogs.
According to the deputy director of the Institute Professor Manindra Agarwal the cell would check atrocities on the stray dogs in the campus and would also take decision about removing the unwanted dogs from the campus. It would also check the growing population of the stray dogs in association with the Municipal Corporation.
As per the guidelines the cell would consist of a chairman and six members. The director of the Institute would nominate the chairman of the Cell while an assistant registrar, deputy registrar and joint registrar (legal Cell) would be the secretaries. Two students and a non teaching staff would be the members of the cell.
“The animal welfare cell will not require huge funds. The funds would easily be raised for the welfare of the dogs in the campus,’he said.
