Bangalore, March 1: Little Manjunath was playing with his friends when a pack of stray dogs pounced on him.

A little later, the four-year-old was dead.

The boy’s death yesterday, after being mauled by the dogs in the east Bangalore compound where he lived, has put the spotlight back on animal waste being dumped in empty plots.

It was the second such incident in recent weeks — on January 5, a nine-year-old girl was killed by strays looking for animal waste.

“At least 20 dogs attacked him,” an eyewitness said.

The badly-bitten Manjunath lay on the road writhing in pain. He was taken to a private hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

The boy’s mother, Annapoorna, fainted and has been hospitalised. The family — including the boy’s father Maheshwaran and elder brother — have been living in the compound for several years.

“We don’t know how these dogs entered our walled quarters,” Maheshwaran said.

Health minister R. Ashok and Bangalore City Corporation commissioner K. Jairaj visited the area after the incident. The minister announced a relief of Rs 1 lakh for Manjunath’s family and asked health officials to clear the waste. He also warned slaughterhouses — licensed and unlicensed — not to throw animal waste around residential colonies.

The city corporation had stopped culling strays after an active sterilisation programme started five years ago. But the stray population has gone up and local residents allege that wastes dumped in many areas of the city attract strays, which come looking for meat.

The corporation now has a twin task at hand: to identify and close unlicensed meat shops — a drive that was stopped after an initial burst of activity — and to tame the rapidly growing stray dog population.