A three-year-old boy has been severely mauled by two street dogs outside an AB Block house where his grandfather is the caretaker.

The child lives with his parents in Howrah but had come to visit his maternal grandfather Sanjay Pandit in Salt Lake. The gate of their co-operative complex (opposite Kestopur Canal) had been opened briefly to let a car leave, when this boy tried to step out.

“The child was still within our complex’s boundary when two dogs came from outside and lunged at him,” said Debmalya Nandi, a resident who witnessed the incident from his balcony upstairs and rushed to help. He, and another resident Kaushik Basak, then drove the child and his guardians to multiple hospitals around town trying to get him treated.

“The boy’s right eye had got attacked and right thumb was hanging by a thread. While we got the rabies shots at Infectious Diseases & Beleghata General Hospital, multiple other government and private hospitals said they lacked the expertise for both eye care and plastic surgery that would be required. The boy finally got operated upon at around midnight at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital,” Nandi said.

“His eye is still bandaged but doctors are saying the surgery has been successful. While they reattached his finger, they asked the parents to start forcing the child to write with his left hand as the right will never be the same again,” sighed Nandi. The boy’s father had himself undergone appendix operation the day before and the mother has been crying her eyes out and cursing herself for coming to Salt Lake.

The incident has once again sent shock waves through the block that keeps witnessing dog bites off and on.

Mahasweta Sil’s daughter was bitten viciously in an AB Block lane earlier this year and it took her months to recover. “I’m a dog lover myself and have had two Dobermanns at home, but this is just not done,” said Sil. “And that particular dog had bitten several people before and after my daughter without the authorities taking any action. Then we heard someone poisoned and killed the dog off. My daughter had gained some courage to walk the streets by herself after that but now hearing of this child’s trauma, she’s again feeling uneasy.”

Block secretary Gopal Dutta said one of the two dogs that bit the child on Monday had also bitten a commuter, who had crossed the footbridge and landed in their block, only the day before. “Residents are scared to step out of home now,” Dutta said. “We have informed the councillor and she said she would look into it.”

Councillor Ratna Bhaumik said she was quite helpless in the situation. “The block is divided on the issue and while some residents want me to take strong action, there are also dog lovers who feed and care for these street dogs and will not allow any step to be taken.”

“We see outsiders’ cars come at night and feed the dogs around our house. It’s a noble deed but these dogs get aggressive around other cars that don’t feed them,” said Nandi. “And they attacked the child that day like they were man-eaters.”

For the record, the dogs are still roaming freely.