Sindh govt willing to buy Australian sheep for culling: Counsel

Provincial government will cull sheep, counsel tells court.

KARACHI: The Sindh government is willing to purchase the Australian sheep so that they can be culled, said the government’s counsel during the sheep culling case hearing  in the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday.

The SHC bench, comprising Justice Maqbool Baqar and Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto, heard the case.

Rejecting the medical report by a UK-based laboratory which stated the sheep were disease free, government’s counsel Anwar Mansoor Khan said the petition should be dismissed.

The case hearing was adjourned till October 18.

Healthy sheep

UK-based laboratory, the Pirbright Institute, had certified that the Australian sheep are fit for human consumption.

Blood samples, drawn from 102 random sheep were tested at the laboratory, known for conducting research on infectious diseases amongst farm animals, after the Sindh High Court (SHC) had ordered an immediate halt to the culling of the imported stock and constituted an independent committee to ascertain the truth behind allegations of disease amongst the imported animals.

“The samples have tested negative for the presence of antibodies to bluetongue, PPR Virus and FMD virus,” Dr Jef Hammond, who serves as the Institute’s head of vesicular disease reference laboratories, wrote in his report.