Bihar police recently launched a special operation to eliminate dogs which had started hunting, killing and eating human beings. So far, 12 of the mongrels have been shot dead. The canines killed and devoured at least eight women and injured several others in Bachhwara and Bhagwanpur blocks in Begusarai district, around 100km east of state capital Patna.

The intensity of attacks increased recently and three of the women were killed in December. The rural folks had either stopped going to work in their agriculture farms out of fear or would move in groups, armed with sticks and spears.

They had started staying strictly indoors after dusk unless there was some emergency. Various rumours were also spread among the people regarding the dog attacks. Some thought that the dogs were drunk on country liquor hidden in farms or around ponds or river banks, some thought that they were mad dogs, while others wondered that they were jackals or wolves.

“My wife Vimla Devi had gone to a patch of land that I cultivate to do some work in the afternoon of December 19. A pack of dogs surrounded and attacked her. Some villagers heard her screams and rushed to her rescue.

“She was badly bitten by then. Flesh from her hands and other parts of her body were torn away. We took her to a hospital where she died,” Vinay Paswan of Maheshpur village said.

Vimla was just 43. Two days later, on December 21, dogs attacked another woman, Sushila Devi of Bachhwara block. She died in a hospital on Christmas.

These two back-to-back incidents prompted the government to intervene. “The dogs had become man-eaters. They killed at least eight women as their prey. Most of the bodies were eaten in such a manner that not a single ounce of flesh remained. They had completely scrubbed the bones. These incidents propelled us to take resolute action,” Teghra sub-divisional officer (SDO) Rakesh Kumar, under whose jurisdiction the affected blocks come, told The Telegraph.

Kumar pointed out that the dogs could have been accustomed to eating the flesh of dead animals or cattle thrown out of the villages in the area, which consists of farms and low-lying ‘chaur’ or ‘taal’ (shallow depression that becomes waterlogged during the monsoon).

“At some point, they could have faced scarcity of dead cattle and started attacking human beings and got a taste of human flesh. All these dogs were of indigenous, local breeds and were clever. They would stay on farms or shrublands and would not come to villages in search of food. They would shift from one area to another and would target mostly women,” Kumar said.

The district administration threw the poison-laced chicken in the areas where the dogs had been attacking people, but they did not eat them. “The smelling power of dogs is phenomenal. It seems they smelled the poison and did not fall for the bait,” Teghra subdivisional police officer (SDPO) Ravindra Mohan Prasad, who is also a doctor, told The Telegraph.

Nitish on CBI case against Lalu

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar asserted on Wednesday that the CBI reopened a case against Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad because he allied with him to form a new government in Bihar. “Just think and understand what is happening.

This is happening because we have come together again,” Nitish told reporters. Nitish split with the BJP in August and formed a new government with the RJD.

However, some leaders of the Grand Alliance pointed out that Nitish refrained from criticising the CBI or the Centre sharply and wondered whether the coalition government was steady. The CBI reopened its probe against Lalu, his younger son Tejashwi and other family members earlier this week.