Meat merchants protest smuggling of livestock
KARACHI:
Meat merchants held a token hunger strike outside the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday to protest against smuggling of live animals from the country.
Meat merchants demanded immediate action from the government against unabated smuggling of cows, buffalos and other livestock to Iran and Afghanistan.
“Continuous smuggling of live animals is destroying the local meat industry,” alleged Information Secretary of Meat Merchants Welfare Association, Sikandar Qureshi.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Qureshi alleged that “officials of the federal ministry for agriculture and livestock are helping permit holders export many times more animals than they are legally permitted.”
He added that the chief justice had already taken notice of the illegal shipment of these animals to other countries and Chief Minister Sindh Qaim Ali Shah had also assured the merchants that the government would take steps to halt illegal trade through the Karachi Port.
However, the merchants lamented that despite repeated assurances from authorities the illegal export of livestock has not been stopped from the Karachi Port or from land route through the Chaman border.
Meat merchants claimed that about 70,000 livestock are being smuggled from the country every month. They threatened to continue their hunger strike indefinitely if the government did not act soon on the issue.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 21st, 2010.
Meat merchants held a token hunger strike outside the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday to protest against smuggling of live animals from the country.
Meat merchants demanded immediate action from the government against unabated smuggling of cows, buffalos and other livestock to Iran and Afghanistan.
“Continuous smuggling of live animals is destroying the local meat industry,” alleged Information Secretary of Meat Merchants Welfare Association, Sikandar Qureshi.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Qureshi alleged that “officials of the federal ministry for agriculture and livestock are helping permit holders export many times more animals than they are legally permitted.”
He added that the chief justice had already taken notice of the illegal shipment of these animals to other countries and Chief Minister Sindh Qaim Ali Shah had also assured the merchants that the government would take steps to halt illegal trade through the Karachi Port.
However, the merchants lamented that despite repeated assurances from authorities the illegal export of livestock has not been stopped from the Karachi Port or from land route through the Chaman border.
Meat merchants claimed that about 70,000 livestock are being smuggled from the country every month. They threatened to continue their hunger strike indefinitely if the government did not act soon on the issue.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 21st, 2010.