IHC issues contempt notice to Zartaj Gul, Amin Aslam over animal deaths at Islamabad Zoo

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) issued contempt notices to Climate Change State Minister Zartaj Gul, Special Assistant Malik Amin Aslam and members of the Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB) on Tuesday in the case pertaining to the death of animals at the capital’s zoo.

IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah took strong exception to the non-implementation of the court orders regarding safe shifting of animals to sanctuaries.

The court rejected government’s contention that climate change secretary was solely responsible for the deaths of animals at the zoo and the minsters and public representative present on the IWMB could not be held accountable for any mismanagement at the zoo.

Two lions of Islamabad Zoo met a terrible fate at the hands of unprofessional animal caretakers as they died while being transferred to the private lion farm in Lahore. IHC had ordered in May to move all animals to their sanctuaries due to the poor state of the zoo.

The case was heard by Chief Justice Minallah. During the hearing, Climate Change Secretary Naheed Durrani took responsibility for the negligence in handling of zoo affairs and said that the federal cabinet had nothing to do with it.

To this, Justice Minallah replied that since the federal cabinet had given approval for the IWMB members, it was also responsible.

The chief justice asked whether the climate change department wanted notices to be issued to the prime minister. “The PM does not even know what has unfolded here.”

“This case is an example of the cruelty of humans on animals,” Justice Minallah said, adding that people have been keeping wild animals as pets and the government should completely ban the import of any such animals.

He pointed out that 40 giraffes were imported and all of them died during a year. The court said there should be accountability over the deaths of animals in state captivity.

On this occasion, the secretary climate change said that the have been investigating the incident of the animal deaths at the zoo for the last six days, “our inquiry is continuing in the context of court orders, we want to submit a written response to the court.” Naheed said that there were 900 animals at the Islamabad Zoo in July last year, but only 400 were handed over to the climate change ministry when it took charge of the facility. Almost half of the animals have gone missing in a year, she said.

The chief justice said that this court has seen that there is a lot of politics in the zoo issue. Regarding accountability of the IWMB members, including the lawmakers, he said that elected representatives can join any board, the law does not say anything to keep elected representatives out of any board. When they were attending seminars and going on foreign tours as members of IWMB it was great, now it was time to face the responsibility, the court said.

He demanded that the investigation report and FIR of the lions’ deaths be presented before the court.

The court issued show-cause notices for contempt of court to the climate change minister, adviser and secretary, and members of the board. The hearing was adjourned till August 27.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 12^th, 2020.