Caught in the canine conundrum Premium

Tragic death of toddler in Hyderabad due to stray dog attack sparks outrage and calls for action.

Stepping out of home unescorted proved to be a costly misadventure for 18-month-old Pulluri Vihaan at Adarsh Nagar Colony of Jawahar Nagar, located about 25 kilometres from the zero mile of Hyderabad city. The toddler’s mother, Venkata Lakshmi, saw him last around 6.30 p.m. of July 16 this year, while going out with her husband to buy medicines for her ailing daughter. The family, originally from Siddipet district, had been staying at Lakshmi’s brother’s house in Hyderabad.

“Vihaan came running to the gate, offering a piece of banana to me. I petted him and left along with my husband, with the image of my cheerful son imprinted on my mind,” recalls Lakshmi, a homemaker.

Just hours later, she saw her son’s body at the mortuary of Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad — disfigured, swollen and full of deep gash wounds.

As soon as Vihaan had stepped out of the gate escaping his grandmother’s watch, he was dragged away by a pack of stray dogs that attacked him viciously for 20 minutes before anybody noticed.

Two private hospitals refused admission seeing the boy’s condition. He was finally shifted to Gandhi Hospital, 16 kilometres away. Vihaan died on the way.

“On our way back from the medical store, my wife and I saw a crowd gathered at the place, but we did not think much of it. When we did not find Vihaan at home, a sense of dread washed over us. We ran to the place, only to learn that he had been rushed to hospital,” shares Vihaan’s father, Bharat Kumar Pulluri, a carpenter.

Vihaan was the only son among the couple’s three children, and was born 11 years after the second girl. “Going against doctors’ advice, I chose to have another child, hoping my two girls would have a brother to take care of them. Now, I cannot have another child, because of uterus fibroids,” she says. “That day, he fed me a banana, and I fed him to the dogs,” she adds before breaking down into hysterical sobs.