Dogs were being skinned by addicts: Karachi official

Qadeer says private television channels were misreporting the facts

KARACHI: Dead dogs were being skinned in a garbage dump by drug users, the Karachi director of veterinary services has clarified to The Express Tribune after news broke of arrests.

On Monday television channels reported that the police had arrested two butchers for supposedly selling dog meat.

“Private television channels were misreporting the facts,” Imran Qadeer, the KMC director of veterinary services, told The Express Tribune. “Actually, it was our veterinary teams who raided the area on a tip-off, but discovered nothing.”

“It’s not the Philippines where people eat dogs,” he added.

It was reported earlier that police had raided the area and caught two butchers red-handed for slaughtering dogs in a building.

It was said that the suspects reportedly belonged to a group that has been doing this for three months.

The police were said to have seized at least 0.5kg of meat for testing.

It was reported that the suspects would appear in court tomorrow (March 3).

Reportedly, the group slaughters as many as seven street dogs every day and sells them in Korangi and Landhi.

In a related incident, on January 6, Multan police claimed to have arrested two butchers with donkey meat.

Read: Quality control: Two arrested for selling donkey meat

A police spokesperson had said the meat was to be sold for Eid Milad celebrations. He added that the butchers, identified as Basaar and Ramazan, had been selling the meat for over five years.

An FIR was registered against them after veterinary doctors inspected the meat and confirmed that it was donkey meat.

Police had claimed that the men had confessed that they were planning to sell it for Rs800 to Rs1,000 per kg.

“The meat had been mixed with mutton so that it could not be identified,” the spokesman had added.