False alarm: Men held for ‘selling donkey meat’ released

'We set them free after vendors in the local market confirmed that the men deal in hides of dead animals,' says SHO.

FAISALABAD:

Dijkot police on Thursday released two men who were arrested a day earlier for allegedly selling donkey meat.

Station House Officer (SHO) Muhammad Rafiq said police had arrested Muhammad Ramazan and Ashfaq Ahmad when villagers were beating them for removing the hide of a dead donkey in village 269-RB.

“The villagers informed us that they had caught the butchers while they were busy cutting the donkey meat into little pieces,” SHO Rafiq said.

The station house officer said the investigation revealed that the men were removing the donkey hide to sell that. “They are poor. They earn their livelihood by selling the hides of dead animals such as donkeys, horses, bulls, cows, buffaloes and sheep.”

Rafiq said that they were removing the hide of the donkey, which had died on Wednesday, when the villagers caught them.

“We set them free after vendors in the local market confirmed that the men deal in hides of dead animals,” the station house officer said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 27^th, 2014.