While the Sindh government stopped political and religious activists from forcibly taking away hides of sacrificial animals, the parties reverted to a door-to-door collection method, which continued uninterrupted till the third day of Eid.
Despite an official “code of conduct” banning activists from collecting the skins from houses, no one from the authorities or the law enforcers bothered to stop the activists.
A political activist, accompanied by his colleague, was not even aware of the code of conduct about hide collection as he went from house to house on a motorcycle. He said that he had been asked by his “seniors” to go and collect as much hides as possible. “We have not intimidated anyone or snatched the hides at gunpoint, but want to facilitate the people by collecting it from their residence,” he explained.
This year, cow hides were sold between Rs2,000 and Rs3,500 while goatskins fetched between Rs200 and Rs350. “The rate depends on the quality of the hide,” said Raja, a buyer. “From what I have seen, there won’t be many hides this time.”
In New Karachi, an area where one political party, one politico-religious party and a banned outfit dominate in different neighbourhoods, the citizens were visited by activists from more than two parties asking for the hide of their animals slaughtered.
“Some say we are from your sect, some say we are from your party and some say we curb crime in your neighbourhood [as reason to demand animal hides],” said a man speaking on the condition of anonymity. “We have to live here while taking along everyone, so the most powerful [of the parties] gets the hide.”
The authorities also accepted the door-to-door hide collection method. Law enforcement agencies received such complaints but it is a good omen that nothing unpleasant was reported and the Eid days passed peacefully, Sharfuddin Memon, the adviser to the home department, told The Express Tribune.
Over half a dozen people, mostly political workers, were reportedly injured during clashes over forced collection of hides in different areas of the city, including Sacchal, Model Colony, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Garden and North Karachi. Three suspects were also arrested by Rangers from Gulistan-e-Jauhar.
Business going down
The business of sacrificial animal hides is also dwindling. Going by the numbers put up by the leather industry, the trend of sacrificing animals on Eidul Azha is going down due to inflation.
With approximately 16 million animals slaughtered every Eid across the country, the business used to be extremely profitable. But for the past six years, the market seems to have lost its fervour. Only eight million animals were sacrificed last year in the country with 500,000 in Karachi alone.
“As compared to the last year, this year the number of animals sacrificed has gone down further, especially goats and sheep,” the former chairman of Pakistan Tanneries Association, Aziz Ahmed, told The Express Tribune. “Due to the skyrocketing prices of sacrificial animals, more and more people are turning toward combined sacrifice.”
According to Islamic principles, up to seven people can contribute to sacrifice one cow. Many families and welfare organisations now prefer to share the cost of the animal and distribute the meat evenly afterwards, thereby bringing down the cost of sacrifice considerably. An average cow costs around Rs70,000 while a normal-sized goat can cost up to Rs25,000. A goat has a single sacrifice share.
“This year also, citizens could not buy goats or sheep and opted to put their money in combined sacrifice, which increased by about 30% as compared to the last year” said Aziz Ahmed.
He, however, could not come up with an exact number of the animals sacrificed, claiming that the process of submitting the skins to the tanneries association was still under way.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 30th, 2012.
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