Zoo’s district officer blamed for death of three lion cubs

Dow University’s medical report was not included in the inquiry committee’s final report.

KARACHI: The committee looking into the deaths of the lion cubs at the Karachi Zoological Garden has submitted its report. The Karachi Zoo’s suspended district officer, Mansoor Qazi, is being held responsible for the deaths.

Ghanwar Leghari, who is the revenue EDO, delivered the report to Karachi DCO Muhammad Hussein Syed on Friday evening in a sealed envelope. The report was not made public until Monday evening.

“The findings in the inquiry report have confirmed that the lion cubs’ death was due to criminal negligence by the Zoo administration,” said a CDGK official.

The three lion cubs died mysteriously within four days of their arrival at the Karachi Zoological Garden while a fourth cub disappeared altogether. The zoo’s district officer, Mansoor Qazi, was suspended for negligence towards the lions and Local Government Minister Agha Siraj Durrani appointed Special Secretary Shazia Rizvi to head an inquiry.

The bodies were frozen and their organs were sent to the Dow University of Health Sciences. The investigation team began its probe under the supervision of Revenue EDO Ghanwar Leghari on August 13.

“The conditions that the cubs were kept in were not at all hygienic and a team of experts are looking into it,” Leghari had told The Express Tribune. “Everything will be clear after the post-mortem.”

The zoo tried to pass the missing cub and the deaths of its siblings off on some form of ‘survival of the fittest’ theory, claiming that the mother, Sara, had tried to eat them. The lion’s owners, in turn, suspected foul play on the zoo’s part and accused it of trying to steal the clubs and make a profit by selling them. The general consensus though, was that the animals died of negligence on the zoo authorities’ part when rainwater flooded their cages.

The inquiry committee’s report included a post-mortem report from the Sindh chemical examiner. It stated there was no evidence of poisoning or disease that may have led to the deaths. The report stated that the deaths were a result of negligence and carelessness.

The other report, however, completed by Dow University of Health Sciences Laboratory was not included in the inquiry report because it was not issued to the committee.

The matter has not yet been laid to rest, and the DCO summoned the committee’s head to DCO Camp Office on Monday night to discuss the report. It is expected that action would be taken on Tuesday.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27^th,  2011.