Schools against eviction of strays from campus, activists call for more shelters
Times of India | 9 November 2025
Kolkata: A day after the Supreme Court order to remove strays from educational institutes like schools, colleges, hospitals, sports complexes, bus depots and railway stations, animal activists and feeders raised concerns over the fate of community dogs as adequate shelters are not available in the state.
They are urging the school and college authorities not to forcibly drive away the strays living on their campuses. Some of the institutes have decided to stay away from launching an eviction drive.
St Augustine's Day School, Shyamnagar principal Rodney Borneo said: "Sheru, a street dog, guards my whole school and loves all my children. He is very innocent and very popular with the kids. So, there is no question of closing our door to him."
Children Welfare High School for Girls' headmistress Sarbari Sengupta, along with other teachers and students, takes care of stray animals and feeds them regularly. "One of the staff regularly feeds them, and my children and other teachers also take care of them. So it's not possible for us to stop this because they have never done any harm to us," she said.
The animal activists and caregivers are also mulling over new ways to keep the community dogs safe.
Activist Radhika Bose, founder of Cape Foundation, said: "We are requesting the authorities of educational institutes to submit petitions to stop the eviction of strays from their campuses. Till now, Bengal does not have adequate shelters for animals, so these strays, if driven out from the premises, will be at stake. From our side, we will step up our focus on vaccination, sterilisation, and animal birth control (ABC) initiatives."
Susmita Roy, who runs a veterinary clinic at Taratala, called the SC order "unthinkable, unnatural, illogical, and inhumane." "It is time for us to come together and control strays' population, for which we need to add pace to the sterilisation drives." Bratin Chakraborty, a representative from the Animal Welfare Board of India, stated: "We are looking forward to the withdrawal of the order that is inhumane." Animal lover Sunetra Bhattacharya, who feeds strays in neighbourhoods of Behala, added: "Dogs should not be relocated from their habitats or the places where they have been living for long.
The recent UGC rule mandates that universities and colleges should have an animal welfare cell. JNU in Delhi has set up an animal welfare society taking care of 400 strays on their campus."