10-year-old boy grows up on dog milk in Dhanbad
DHANBAD: Mohit Kumar, 10, mute since birth, has been feeding on dog’s milk since the age of four. The only difference between him and Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli being Kumar’s parents are alive. Though he was weaned at two years, he developed this habit two years later at the age of four. Interestingly, all the stray bitches of Manaitand in Dhanbad recognize him. But his poor parents are at their wit’s end. Despite their repeated efforts, they have not been able to wean him off the dogs’ milk. This fear has also kept them from sending the 10-year-old lad to school.While Mohit’s father Subedar Singh sells fruit juices at a roadside eatery, his mother Pinky Kumari works as a domestic help. She said: “Once Mohit was playing with stray dogs outside their house and happened to suck on the breasts of a bitch. Since then he does the same whenever he gets a chance to do so. Bitches of the area have also taken a liking to him and feed him whenever Mohit wants them to.”
Though they do not allow Mohit to step out of the house without their supervision, she said, he gives them a slip and manages to flee sometimes. It’s only when neighbours complain that he was found sucking milk of stray bitches that they come to know what he had been up to. “We do not even allow him to go to school fearing that this habit may only get worse.”
His family has not been able to take him to any doctor for treatment owing to finacial problems. Things took an ugly turn two weeks ago when he was bitten by a dog. His hapless mother said, “When he attempted to suck the milk of a bitch from another colony, he was bitten by her. We were then forced to take him to Patliputra Medical College Hospital (PMCH) for treatment.” Mohit is now taking vaccine to avoid rabies, but no medicines have been prescribed to stop him from feeding on bitch’s milk.
Speaking on the addiction, a senior doctor of Central Hospital, Dr D K Singh said: “A female dog’s milk is not hazardous to human life, but the risk of rabies infection is always there.”