In a gruesome event that has incited national dismay, some villages in Telangana’s Hanamkonda and Kamareddy districts have seen a horrific mass culling of stray dogs. Between January 6 and January 13, 2026, it has been reported that some 500 canines were poisoned or injected with fatal drugs by people who had been hired by newly elected village sarpanches.
The ‘Election Promise’ that Led to the Massacre
In late 2025, amidst the high-stakes Gram Panchayat elections, the "stray dog menace" emerged as a key driving force of the campaign. In some rural mandals, candidates also reportedly told voters that they would “cleanse” the streets of stray animals so as to avoid dog-bite incidents.
After their triumphs, these were supposed to have circumvented the required Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules and employed professional catchers to dispose of them. Carcasses were discovered buried in mass pits on the outskirts of villages such as Shayampet, Arepally, and Bhavanipet, police reported.
Police response and investigations
The extent of the cruelty would become apparent when animal rights activists, including the Stray Animal Foundation of India, found the dumping grounds.
- Hanamkonda: Nine people, including two woman sarpanches and their husbands, were booked for the killing of nearly 300 dogs.
- Kamareddy: Cases were registered against six individuals, including five sarpanches, for allegedly poisoning another 200 dogs in Palwancha mandal.
Police have invoked Section 325 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) (mischief by killing or maiming an animal) and relevant sections of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. Viscera samples have been sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) to identify the toxins used.
The Legal Context: The Supreme Court’s Serious Warning
Also coincidentally, as the massacre had been unfolding on the other hand, on January 13, 2026, the Supreme Court of India was hearing a suo motu case related to the stray dog crisis. Unhappy with the state governments’ “75 years of failure” in enforcing sterilization norms, the Bench also warned that “in short order, it’s going to get to a point where the states pay very significant compensation” for every dog-bite injury or death.
But the Court also made clear that culling is not the solution. Although the Bench has made allowance for the expulsion of aggressive dogs from potentially contaminated areas such as schools and hospitals or crowded spaces, it reinforced that the Capture-Sterilize-Vaccinate-Release (CSVR) model is still the only legal avenue for population management.
