The Bangladeshi capital has ordered an end to the culling of dogs in the drive against rabies after complaints the animals were being cruelly beaten to death, an official said Thursday.

The Dhaka City Corporation previously had responsibility for conducting mass extermination drives to protect the city's 15-million strong human population, with up to 20,000 dogs killed a year.

"It is inhumane and ineffective," local government secretary Abu Alam Shahid Khan told AFP, saying the ban had begun on January 1.

"For decades tens of thousands of dogs were put to death unnecessarily and brutally. They were beaten to death by iron bars. Puppies were murdered by crushing them against walls. Yet the rabies situation never improved."

The ban is a victory for the small but vocal animal rights movement in Bangladesh and campaigners who say neutering and sterilisation are a better way of combating strays, which are thought to number about 150,000 in Dhaka.

Khan said a successful sterilisation campaign in the southeastern resort town of Cox's Bazaar had prompted Dhaka authorities to implement their no-cull policy.

Every year about 2,000 people in Bangladesh die of rabies, a disease transmitted by the bite of an infected animal, according to the government.