From shootings, poisoning to dump-truck killings, Pakistan’s failed dog culling policies are exposing a dangerous erosion of empathy.
What is unfolding across Lahore this May is not governance. It is not public safety. It is not policy. It is barbarism dressed up as administration. Across parts of the city, from Township to Shadbagh, Green Town to Sultan Colony, stray dogs are reportedly being shot, poisoned, dragged away in vans, and dumped in open areas despite assurances made before the Lahore High Court that humane population control methods would be adopted instead. (Source: DAWN)
How many times must we repeat the same failed cruelty before admitting it does not work? Rabid dogs suffering from disease should absolutely be humanely euthanised by trained professionals. No compassionate person disputes the need to protect human life. But what is happening now is something far darker: a chaotic, indiscriminate campaign of violence against voiceless animals. And perhaps the more disturbing question is not what this says about our institutions, but what it says about us.
There comes a point where a society must ask itself: have we lost our humanity entirely? How does one drive past suffering and feel nothing? How does one hear gunshots echoing through neighbourhoods, watch terrified animals run for their lives, and continue with lunch plans and business meetings as though nothing happened? Injustice should unsettle us wherever it exists – especially when it unfolds openly under our noses. A civilisation is not judged by how it treats the powerful. It is judged by how it treats the weak, the vulnerable, the unwanted. Animals do not have language with which to plead for mercy. Their terror is expressed through trembling bodies, frantic eyes, desperate attempts to survive.
And yet this month, social media has been flooded with scenes so horrifying they feel almost impossible to comprehend. One video allegedly showed a dog tied by its leg to a municipal vehicle and dragged down a main road. Another showed a truck overflowing with dead dogs, while one animal – still alive, bleeding heavily – continued weakly wagging its tail amongst the bodies. Tail wagging: that final instinctive gesture of trust toward the very species destroying it.
What depths of sickness has man plunged into when even that does not stop him?
Authorities continue to defend these operations in the name of public safety following a rise in dog attacks, including the tragic death of a young girl earlier this year. But rage and grief cannot become justification for mass brutality. Because history – and science – have already proven that culling does not solve the problem. It never has.
The Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Release (TNVR) model has repeatedly been recognised around the world as the most effective long-term solution for controlling stray dog populations and reducing rabies transmission. Sterilised dogs cannot reproduce. Vaccinated dogs create immunity buffers within communities. Stable dog populations prevent new, unvaccinated packs from moving into territories. This is not emotional idealism. It is evidence-based public health policy.
Even DAWN, in a recent editorial condemning the ongoing killings, stated clearly that “culling only yields a temporary drop in stray populations,” while TNVR programmes have successfully reduced canine numbers across Asia. The Punjab Animal Birth Control Policy 2021 itself advocates sterilisation and vaccination over mass killings. And yet despite court undertakings to implement these humane measures, reports continue to emerge of dogs allegedly being transported to areas (within and around Lahore) and brutally killed.
If dog culling truly worked, Pakistan would not still be trapped in this cycle decades later.
That is the glaring truth authorities cannot escape.
Every few years, another wave of shootings begins. Another so-called “operation.” Another pile of bodies. Another temporary reduction followed by another population surge because the root causes – unchecked breeding, poor waste management, lack of vaccination infrastructure, abandonment of pets – remain untouched. Violence has become a substitute for competence.
And perhaps this is what should disturb us most: the ease with which cruelty becomes normalised. Once a society begins deciding which lives are disposable, empathy itself starts to erode.
Today it is stray dogs. Tomorrow it becomes easier to look away from suffering elsewhere too. Compassion cannot be selective.
Spiritual traditions across every faith teach mercy toward animals and place compassion at the heart of moral life. In Islam, this is especially explicit: there are well-known sayings and teachings in which an individual is forgiven by God for giving water to a thirsty dog, and others where kindness toward animals is described as an act of deep spiritual worth.
These are not symbolic gestures…they are reminders of a basic ethic of mercy.
What then do we call this deliberate brutality?
The answer cannot continue to be bullets, poison and dumpsters.
To understand the scale and texture of this cruelty, one does not need to look far. A snapshot exists in plain sight across social media pages run by rescue organisations such as the Ayesha Chundrigar Foundation, Todd’s Welfare Society, and Lucky Animal Protection Shelter (LAPS) in Peshawar, among others.
Their feeds document the daily reality behind the statistics: dogs pulled from streets with open wounds, litters abandoned in plastic bags, animals hit by vehicles and left untreated, and beizaban survivors clinging to life after violence or neglect. These are not rare tragedies – they are routine. In many communities, stray dogs are still widely labelled as “paleet,” treated as impure, unwanted, disposable. That belief becomes permission, permission to chase, beat, poison, or erase. And so the line between institutional action and societal complicity begins to blur.
The blood is not only on policy; it is on collective indifference, on everyday acceptance, on silence that allows cruelty to repeat itself in cycles.
The answer must be investment in TNVR programmes. Vaccination drives. Public education. Waste management reform. Partnerships with animal welfare organisations and animal activists. Proper shelters. Accountability. Humane euthanasia only in genuinely necessary medical cases. Not open season on living creatures.
Because the measure of a nation is not how loudly it claims morality. It is how much mercy it shows when no one is watching.
Header image: Shiza Nizam