Srinagar, Feb. 7 -- In the past two years in Jammu and Kashmir, over 2,06,460 people were bitten by dogs, mostly strays, health minister Sakina Itoo informed the J&K assembly. The numbers reveal that more than 8,600 people were bitten by dogs on an average every month in the union territory at a rate of around 282 incidents every day from January 2024 to December 2025. In a written response to NC legislator Mubarak Gul, Itoo informed that 2,06,460 dog bite cases were reported in Jammu and Kashmir with Jammu division recording 1,26,844 or 61 % of the cases and Kashmir valley reporting 79,616 cases during the two-year period. The people of J&K's twin cities - Jammu and Srinagar - have faced the maximum brunt accounting for 1,11,998 dog bite cases with the numbers compiled from data of the directorate of health services, Government Medical Colleges and SKIMS. Jammu district tops the list with 76,824 cases while Kashmir's Srinagar follows with 35,174 cases. The other districts which also witnessed a substantial number of cases are Kathua with 17,129 cases, Baramulla with 12,882 cases and Anantnag with 10,818 cases. The successive governments have been running the Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme since 2013 with two ABC centres in Srinagar and three ABC shelters in Jammu but the staggering number of bites reveal that the programme is making miniscule impact to control the population of dogs particularly in the two cities. While the response didn't mention the number of stray dogs in Jammu, it put the number of stray dogs in Srinagar at 64,000. "There is no report of increase in the population of stray dogs within the limits of Jammu Municipal Corporation. However, the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) has conducted a scientific population survey in 2023, which estimated approximately 64,416 stray dogs within its limits. To humanely manage this population in compliance with the law, specifically the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, and the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023, the SMC has been implementing an outsourced ABC-ARV (Animal Birth Control and Anti-Rabies Vaccination) programme," the minister said. The government response in the assembly stated no sterilization data of the past two years in Jammu while in Srinagar, a maximum of 15,200 dogs have been sterilised in the past seven years. "In order to tackle the incidents of dog bites cases, JMC has increased the capacity to perform Animal Birth control (ABC) surgeries by setting up two new ABC centres- one at SPCA Chowdhai and other at Bhagwati Nagar- in addition to the already functional ABC shelter at MACC Roop Nagar. Robust Anti-Rabies Vaccine program of stray Dogs has been taken up by JMC within the Limits of JMC," the response stated. In Kashmir, ABC was started in 2013 with one centre in Srinagar's Shuhama which has 50 kennels where authorities would sterilize just 5-10 dogs per day. After the second ABC centre was opened in 2023 at Tengpora, the authorities were able to perform 60-70 sterilisations per day. The minister said the directorate of urban local bodies, Kashmir, is in the process of establishing ABC centres in all the nine other districts of Kashmir division....