In the past few weeks, a series of shocking incidents underlined a grim reality: People who care for street dogs are increasingly facing vilification and violence. In Raipur, a man feeding street dogs was beaten to death. In Gwalior, a woman — herself an advocate — struggled to get the police to register a case after a brutal assault. In Kolkata, senior citizen Gautam Pramanik was admitted to intensive care after being beaten for feeding dogs. Meanwhile, careless public commentary has intensified national debate and encouraged anti-feeder vigilantism, with tragic consequences. The victims were not breaking any law. They were simply feeding, sterilising, and vaccinating vulnerable animals. This violence is unfolding amid a charged national debate on managing India’s millions of street dogs — one that has devolved into legal theatre and regulatory confusion instead of science-based policy.
Judicial flip-flops have brought confusion instead of clarity. In August 2025, the Supreme Court directed municipal authorities in Delhi-NCR to remove all street dogs and house them in shelters indefinitely. Critics pointed out that this contradicted India’s Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023, which mandate humane population management through sterilisation, vaccination, and release back into communities. Promulgated under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, the ABC Rules provide a legally sanctioned framework to reduce the dog population without cruelty. Authorities are required to capture free-roaming dogs humanely, sterilise them, vaccinate them against rabies, and release them back to their original locations. However, the earlier order attempted to override these rules. It was reversed, then partially restored, and now, during the January 2026 hearings, a three-judge bench went further into policy terrain, suggesting that feeding should occur within private premises and that states could be liable for compensation if attacks resulted from lax management.