Srinagar, Oct. 29 -- A staggering 2,12,968 people were bitten by dogs, mostly strays, since the year 2022 in J&K, CM Omar informed the J&K assembly on Tuesday. The numbers reveal that around 4,700 people were bitten by dogs on an average every month at a rate of around 160 incidents every day from the beginning of 2022 to September 2025. In a written response to National Conference legislator Mubarak Gul, Omar informed that as many as 1,14,498 dog bite cases were reported in Kashmir valley and 98,470 cases in Jammu division during the period. The government also informed that a total of 48,998 dogs were sterilised and vaccinated from June 2023 to September 2025 with 27,237 sterilisations done by Srinagar municipal corporation (SMC) and 13,730 performed by Jammu MC. HT reported in August that Srinagar SMC had restarted the Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme in August this year after it was stopped in November 2024 owing to winter. It was supposed to start in March this year but lack of response to the tenders for the sterilisations further delayed the program. The ABC was started in Kashmir in 2013 with one centre in Srinagar's Shuhama which has 50 kennels where the authorities would sterilize just 5-10 dogs per day making miniscule impact to control the spiraling population of dogs particularly in the city which the officials put anywhere between 50,000 to 60,000. After the second ABC centre was opened in 2023 at Tengpora on an area of 7 kanals with 210 kennels, the authorities have been able to perform 60-70 sterilisations per day....