Animal lovers who feed stray dogs have approached the High Court for protection through as many as seven different petitions.

Last week, the first hearings were held on these petitions; all are related to the same issue — dog lovers being harassed, and in the case of some women, molested, for feeding and taking care of stray dogs.

The High Court has now served a notice to the government.

Before approaching the High Court, these animal lovers shared their experiences with each other. It emerged that the number of people who had problems with neighbours was very high. Some women have complained of molestation, and many say RWAs and the local police have actually become part of the problem. Feeding dogs has set off a trend of criminal intimidation, they say.

“We wanted to know if these problems existed on a larger scale. Most of the responses we got confirmed that they do, and everyone who wrote in urged us to go to court,” says Geeta Seshamani, co-founder of Friendicoes animal shelter, one of the petitioners.

“The dogs are aggressive and they bite” is the commonest complaint dog lovers get. “It’s absolutely untrue,” writes in a dog lover from Vasant Kunj. “People make these stories up to discredit dogs, even those that have been de-wormed and vaccinated,” she says.

“People have thrown stones at me and used foul language. On one occasion, pups were smeared with white paint and thrown into a dump full of broken glass. Once the paint hardened the puppies could not move their limbs,” says the woman who feeds dogs in D-block, Vasant Kunj.

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