New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru (JLN) Stadium is getting decked up for yet another series of big-ticket events, from the Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon to the much-awaited Travis Scott concert expected to draw thousands of people, on the 18th and 19th of this month.
Such events are a hallmark of the stadium, where the World Para Athletics Championships 2025 just wrapped up. Certain sections hoped this would pave the way for a successful Olympics bid for 2036. The marquee event did make the headlines, just not for the reasons people hoped.
Last week, while the World Para Athletics Championships were ongoing, coach Meiko Okumatsu from Japan and Kenyan coach Dennis Maragia reported being bitten by a stray dog while training, leaving the administration red-faced. The news spread through social media like wildfire, inviting much ridicule.
Following the incident, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) directed two dog-catching teams to permanently station themselves inside the stadium premises for the removal and transfer of stray dogs to shelter homes and a local Animal Birth Control (ABC) centre.
But the controversy didn’t die down there.
On Thursday, there was high drama at the JLN’s gate no. 10, which remained tightly shut as a van—belonging to the Animal India Trust, a non-profit that runs one of the ABC centres of Delhi—full of stray dogs waited from 7 am to night while the stadium administration and animal rights activists butted heads.
The activists accused the JLN authorities of not letting the stray dogs who lived in the stadium premises—and had been rounded up prior to para athletics events as well as after the bite incidents—to return. This, they added, was a violation of the Supreme Court’s 22 August order that said stray dogs are to be sterilised and returned to their original territories as is procedure under the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023, while only those exhibiting aggressive behaviour or infected with rabies are not to be released.
The animal welfare WhatsApp groups were abuzz with messages to drum up support, while dramatic visuals showed the dogs in the Animal India Trust van, pawing through the gaps to be let out and being given water by volunteers in the afternoon heat.
People for Animals (PFA) trustee Ambika Shukla told ThePrint that this was done after a written directive was issued under a Sports Authority of India (SAI) letterhead by Joint Administrator, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (JNS) Complex, Abhishek (who only goes by his first name) to SIS Limited, a private security firm, to not allow any stray dogs and dog feeders inside the stadium premises. The notice, also posted on X by Delhi Animal Welfare Board (DAWB) executive committee member Dr Asher Jesudoss, said violation would invite a penalty.
Stadium officials and guards posted at the gate, not wanting to be named, nervously confirmed to ThePrint that such a directive had indeed been issued.
“I spoke to both the Japanese and the Kenyan coaches, both of whom gave the same description of the dog that bit them. This dog has not yet been identified. It was not part of the ones rounded up from the stadium. No dog of this description was in the van that returned with the dogs rounded up from JLN, indicating that it entered from outside,” Shukla said.
Delhi Animal Welfare Board’s Dr Jesudoss told ThePrint: “The dogs should be released back in the stadium as per the SC directive. They have been duly vaccinated and sterilised as per procedure. The administration should adhere to set guidelines.”
ThePrint waited outside the JLN authorities office for a comment from joint administrator Abhishek, but was told after, that he had left. ThePrint has reached the JLN authorities for comment via email.
The van with the dogs stood outside the gates the entire day. Asked what the next course of action would be if the stalemate continues, PFA’s Shukla reiterated that dogs will be released inside the stadium, their original territory, no matter what.
Some passersby, observing the events unfolding, commented that the stadium should follow the SC’s directive, while some thought that the dogs could be released outside the gates and would figure their own way into the premises.
Meanwhile, away from all the drama at gate no. 10, a dog had quietly found its way inside the stadium, roaming around unassumingly, part of the surroundings of the bustling sounds of moving equipment, event managers, and labourers.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
Too much activism. We do not want any stary animals in the whole India.