Islamabad’s residents are once again pleading for help. In sector after sector, packs of stray dogs roam freely, children are being bitten, and anti-rabies vaccines are often hard to find. The Capital Development Authority (CDA) insists it has a plan, including a sterilisation drive, a shelter, and a helpline for complaints. But, like so many municipal promises, these measures exist more in press statements than in practice.
The CDA’s Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Release programme was meant to replace the old, cruel culling drives. Yet the city’s stray population continues to rise, and activists have documented neglect and overcrowding inside the very shelter built to embody humane reform. The problem, as ever, is not the dogs. It is the system. When local government collapses into bureaucratic fragments, even the most basic functions of urban life fall away.
According to official and WHO-linked estimates, Pakistan records hundreds of thousands of dog-bite cases every year, with rabies deaths reported in nearly every province. Independent groups warn that the stray population likely runs into the low millions, though reliable national data are lacking. What is known is that most cities lack the staff, equipment, and sustained budgets to manage animal control scientifically.
Some progress has been made. Karachi’s rabies control campaign vaccinated tens of thousands of dogs in targeted zones, reducing bite incidents. The Punjab High Court, meanwhile, has restricted indiscriminate culling and ordered humane birth-control programmes for animals. These are steps towards decency, but they remain exceptions, not norms. Islamabad’s own vaccination and sterilisation efforts are sporadic, underfunded, and easily derailed by administrative reshuffles.
The cruelty of the present system lies less in intent than in neglect. Garbage piles, open drains, and uncontrolled waste feed the stray population. Hospitals often ration vaccines. When coordination breaks down between city administrations and provincial health departments, it is not just animals that suffer. At the end of the day, it is citizens who pay the price.
A national framework is long overdue: one that integrates rabies control with public health, funds proper sterilisation facilities, and enforces basic welfare standards. The federal capital, at least, should be setting that example. Instead, it mirrors the dysfunction everywhere else; fragmented, reactive, and hollowed out by short-termism. *