Stray dogs at Pune airport scare air passengers; civic body’s help sought

PUNE: The number of stray dogs has been on the rise at the Lohegaon airport, giving flyers and people visiting the facility a difficult time in manoeuvring past them.
Airport director Santosh Doke said they have recently requested the Pune Municipal Corporation authorities to carry out a drive to shift the dogs to some other address.

“Stray dogs have become a major concern for us as many passengers and airline employees have complained about it.The dogs need to be relocated to other locations. The PMC dog squad catches the animals (and takes them) but they keep returning to the airport,” Doke said, adding that there have been no incidents of dogs straying at the runway so far.
“They are mostly found outside the terminal and in the parking areas of the airport,” he said.
There has been no official complaint of dog bites or attacks at the airport so far, said the officials at the airport. “The pack of stray dogs roams in the open areas and it terrifies airline employees. We cannot rule out the possibility of attacks in the future. Deployment of dedicated dog squad at the airport is the need of the hour,” said a senior official with the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).
The shops and eateries outside the airport have been instructed to dispose garbage at proper sites, said an official with the Airports Authority of India (AAI). Frequent flyer to Delhi Avinash Tangle said, “I have never seen so many dogs outside any airport.”
Another frequent flyer Santosh Joshi said, “For the midnight flights, you often have to wait in the open areas for cabs and when the dogs come near you it gets petrifying.”
Even senior officers with the Indian Air Force (IAF) had taken up the stray dog issue with the PMC. Dr Sarika Punde, the head of the veterinary section of the PMC, said, “We send our dog squad every Saturday to the airport to catch unsterilized dogs. We may intensify our drive in the coming days.”