Overview
- Demonstrations drew hundreds in Mumbai and Pune, with Youth Congress joining protesters who called the Supreme Court’s November 7 interim order cruel and unworkable.
- The court directed fencing of institutions such as schools, hospitals, bus stands and railway stations and ordered dogs be sterilised, vaccinated and moved to shelters without release back to their locations.
- Activists in Mumbai warned the city’s stray population exceeds 90,000 and said existing shelters are already full, raising fears of overcrowding, disease and abandonment.
- Former welfare officials and NGOs argued the core issue is chronic underfunding and weak implementation of the Animal Birth Control programme rather than the presence of dogs in public spaces.
- Local pushback included a Mumbai school seeking to keep two campus dogs, while welfare groups asked the court to hear NGOs at the next hearing on January 16.