In Srinagar, the texture of daily fear has transformed — not vanished. A city that once measured danger in the language of armed conflict now counts it in dog bites: over 36,000 in four years, nearly one for every fifty residents. Across Jammu and Kashmir as a whole, more than two lakh people have been bitten since 2022, a quiet crisis rooted not in malice but in neglect — the uncollected garbage that feeds a stray population estimated at 90,000 dogs in Srinagar alone. What persists is an old question in new form: how a society chooses to manage its commons, and who bears the cost when it does
Srinagar's New Crisis: Dog Bites Surge Past 36,000 Cases in Four Years
Over 2.12 lakh dog bite cases reported across Jammu and Kashmir between 2022-2025, with children experiencing fear and restricting movement in affected areas.
One in every fifty people bitten in four years
Mark
So we're talking about more than 36,000 dog bites in one city in four years. That's a public health emergency, right?
Mimi
It absolutely is. What makes it striking is the context—Srinagar spent decades dealing with militant violence. Now the thing keeping children off the streets is stray dogs.
Luke
But let's be careful here. The 36,000 figure is specific to Srinagar. The broader number is 2.12 lakh across the entire Union Territory. That's important context.
Mark
Why does waste management matter so much?
Mimi
Because stray dogs need to eat. Poor garbage collection means food is available everywhere. The population grows, becomes more desperate, more aggressive.
Luke
The source says experts believe that's the cause, but I don't see studies cited. It's a reasonable hypothesis, but we should know if it's actually been proven.
Mark
What about the sterilization programs Maneka Gandhi mentioned?
Mimi
They've been proposed, but the source suggests they haven't taken hold. The problem persists despite the advocacy.
Luke
Right—and we don't know why. Is it funding? Political will? Implementation failure? The story doesn't tell us.
Mark
So what actually happens next? Is anyone doing anything?
Mimi
That's the open question. The government released the data, which means they're at least acknowledging it. But the narrative doesn't show us any concrete plan.
Luke
Exactly. We know the problem is massive. We know what experts think causes it. We don't know what's being done to fix it.
The Pulse
- At nearly 150 dog bites per day across Jammu and Kashmir, the scale of the crisis has moved from neighborhood complaint to public health emergency demanding legislative attention.
- Children are now avoiding streets during morning and evening hours — the same hours that once belonged to the rhythms of ordinary life — as stray dogs claim public space by default.
- Experts trace the surge directly to failing waste management systems, which provide stray populations with a reliable food supply and allow numbers to grow far beyond any intervention's reach.
- Political pressure forced the government to release comprehensive bite data in the assembly, finally making visible a crisis that residents had been living inside for years.
- Animal rights advocates push for sterilization over culling, but neither approach has yet outpaced the conditions — overflowing garbage, unchecked population growth — that sustain the problem.
- The city stands at an uncertain threshold: whether waste infrastructure can be reformed fast enough to reverse a trend that has already quietly redrawn the boundaries of freedom for thousands of Kashmiris.
In Srinagar, the texture of daily fear has transformed — not vanished. A city that once measured danger in the language of armed conflict now counts it in dog bites: over 36,000 in four years, nearly one for every fifty residents. Across Jammu and Kashmir as a whole, more than two lakh people have been bitten since 2022, a quiet crisis rooted not in malice but in neglect — the uncollected garbage that feeds a stray population estimated at 90,000 dogs in Srinagar alone. What persists is an old question in new form: how a society chooses to manage its commons, and who bears the cost when it does not.
In Srinagar, fear has changed its shape. The city that once lived under the weight of armed conflict now contends with a threat that moves on four legs — stray dogs that have bitten more than 36,000 residents between 2022 and 2025. In a city of roughly 1.5 million, that amounts to one person in every fifty. Across the wider Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the figure climbs to over 2.12 lakh cases — nearly 150 bites every single day.
The Kashmir region accounts for 1,14,498 of those cases, with Srinagar leading by a wide margin. Anantnag follows with 26,453, Baramulla with 18,563. Even smaller districts like Shopian recorded over a thousand incidents. The Jammu region contributed 98,470 cases of its own, underscoring that this is not a local anomaly but a territorial crisis.
At the root of the surge is a population problem, and at the root of that is a waste management failure. A survey estimated Srinagar's stray dog population at over 90,000. Those animals did not multiply in a vacuum — they were sustained by the abundant food that uncollected garbage provides. Experts have been consistent on this point: fix the waste systems, and the conditions that allow stray populations to explode begin to erode.
The human cost is felt most acutely by children, who now avoid streets during the early morning and evening hours when dogs are most active. For a city gradually emerging from decades of insurgency, this represents a quieter but no less real constraint on public life.
The crisis reached the assembly floor when Srinagar MLA Mubarak Gul pressed the government for answers, prompting the release of data that confirmed what residents already knew. Animal rights advocates, including Maneka Gandhi, have long argued against culling in favor of sterilization programs. Yet neither political attention nor advocacy has yet translated into conditions on the ground that reverse the trend. The more straightforward explanation — garbage accumulates, dogs multiply, people are bitten — remains the one experts return to, and the one that awaits a serious institutional response.
In Srinagar, the nature of fear has quietly shifted. Where once the city lived under the shadow of armed conflict, residents now speak of a different kind of threat—one that moves on four legs and emerges in the early morning and evening hours. The numbers tell a stark story: between 2022 and 2025, more than 36,000 people in Srinagar were bitten by dogs. In a city of roughly 1.5 million, that means roughly one person in every fifty has been attacked by a canine in just four years.
The scale of the problem extends far beyond Srinagar's borders. Government data presented to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly revealed that across the entire Union Territory, dog bites have reached 2.12 lakh cases in the same period—a rate of nearly 150 incidents every single day. The Kashmir region accounted for 1,14,498 of those cases, while the Jammu region recorded 98,470. Srinagar leads the list by a significant margin, but it is not alone in its struggle. Anantnag reported 26,453 cases, Baramulla 18,563, and smaller districts like Shopian recorded 1,357 bites. Even Jammu district, which saw fewer total cases than Kashmir's worst-hit areas, still experienced enough incidents that nearly three out of every hundred residents were bitten during this four-year span.
The explosion in dog bites points to an explosion in the stray dog population itself. A survey conducted years earlier estimated Srinagar alone harbored more than 90,000 stray dogs. That population did not emerge by accident. Experts point to a single, preventable cause: poor waste management. Inadequate garbage collection and disposal create an environment where stray dogs find abundant food, allowing populations to grow unchecked and sustain themselves across the city's neighborhoods.
The human cost is measured not just in bite statistics but in the daily lives of residents, particularly children. Parents report that their children now avoid walking alone during morning and evening hours—the times when stray dogs are most active. In a city that has gradually moved beyond decades of armed insurgency, this represents a different kind of constraint on freedom of movement, one that affects the young and shapes their relationship with public space.
The problem has not gone unnoticed by political figures. When Srinagar MLA and former Speaker Mubarak Gul raised the issue in the assembly, the government was forced to release the comprehensive data that revealed the true scale of the crisis. Animal rights advocates, including politician and activist Maneka Gandhi, have long opposed the culling of stray dogs, arguing instead for more humane approaches such as sterilization programs. Yet despite these interventions and the public complaints that have accumulated over years, the situation persists. Some residents, in private conversations, have begun attributing the surge to outside actors, though no evidence supports such claims. The more straightforward explanation—that garbage piles up, dogs multiply, and people get bitten—remains the one experts continue to emphasize. What remains unclear is whether the city's waste management systems will be reformed quickly enough to reverse a trend that has already reshaped how thousands of Kashmiris move through their own streets.
Notable Quotes
Many children dread walking alone on the streets of Kashmir, particularly in the mornings and evenings— Reporting from residents and local observations
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