Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 24: About sixty visually impaired inmates of the Blind Home, being run by the State Social Welfare Department, at Upper Roop Nagar, in Jammu, are passing sleepless nights and feeling scared as the Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) is dumping the stray dogs in a complex, just closer to this ‘Home’ for the blinds.
The scared children of this Home including the females, housed in the adjoining separate complex, mostly keep themselves confined within the premises as sometimes a few dogs come out of this Animal Care Centre and barge into the Home. The foul smell emanating from animal excreta spread on the roof top of the building of the Animal Care Centre is posing threat to the health of these children. Such is the foul smell in the Blind Home and surrounding this Home that it is very difficult to stand there for some time.
One can imagine how these hapless and visually impaired children take food in the dinning hall, which is hardly 15 feet away from the cells made for the dogs. Many injured dogs are kept in this centre which keep crying and also fighting during nights, forcing these children to pass sleepless nights. Their noise also affects the concentration of these children while studying in the Home.
The Excelsior team visited the site and spoke to several inmates and Superintendent of the Blind Home and observed that hapless children are really the sufferers. It is highly unfair to dump stray dogs closer to the highly sensitive children, because their mode of study and grasping of study material is through sense of touching, which requires a sense of touch with coordination of human brain, which is prone to get disturbed with noise of these barking dogs and foul smell around them.
Cook Shamim Ahmed of Blind Home said that he keep the doors and windows of kitchen close due to foul smell coming from the nearby Animal Care Centre. Several inmates of the Home shared their concern and said that they have now decided to hold protest dharna outside Raj Bhawan.
Superintendent of the Blind Home, Khalida Begum said that she had brought the matter to the notice of senior officers of the department. They have further taken up the issue with the JMC authorities but no action has been seen on the ground so far.
National Federation of Blinds, J&K Chapter general secretary Ram Dass Dubey said that this animals care centre and dumping place of dogs be shifted to some where else.
Director Social Welfare department Jammu Vir Ji Hangloo when contacted said that he has flashed two letters so far to the Commissioner JMC, requesting to shift the Centre to some other appropriate site.
Joint Commissioner, JMC Jammu R S Jamwal said that they have no problem in shifting this animal care/ stray dogs dumping place to some where else.
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