Cattle market to ‘stay’ at Shahpur Kanjra

LHC dismisses plea challenging the shifting of the cattle market.

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday dismissed the petition challenging the shifting of the cattle market from Bund Road to Shahpur Kanjra, observing that if they were to go by the petitioner’s argument, the sacrificial animals would end up on LHC premises one day.

Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed of the LHC issued this order after he was told that the market had already been shifted to Shahpur Kanjra in 2007 and that there was no market at Bund Road.

Earlier on November 3, the judge had stayed the shifting of the market on a petition filed by Anjuman-e-Tahaffuz-e-Baqraan challenging the change in venue.

Petitioners, Shabbir Ahmed and Liaqat Ali Bhatti, through their counsel had submitted that the cattle market near Chowk Yateem Khana was famous. People come to this place from all parts of the country for doing business, the petitioners submitted, adding that the government plans to shift it out of the city would spell trouble. The petitioners said that the DCO’s order regarding shifting the market to an unknown place was causing inconveniences for traders and general public, with Eid-ul-Azha just around the corner.

On Friday, the Sabzazar Welfare Society, through its counsel Muhammad Azhar Siddique, stated before the court that the market had been shifted in 2007 on the court’s orders. Siddique said that the petitioners were trying to get a decision in their favour by concealing facts from the court. “The cattle market does not exist at Bund Road,” Siddique submitted. At this counsel for the petitioners submitted that so far more than 150,000 goats and cattle had reached Lahore for Eid and that these could not be accommodated at Shah Pur Kanjra. The judge remarked that no matter how many sacrificial animals were in the city, the sellers could not be allowed to do business in residential areas.

Residents society and SP ordered to resolve matter

The Lahore High Court’s Chief Justice (CJ), on Thursday, gave time till November 22 to the Model Town Welfare Society and the superintendent of police (SP) Model Town to resolve the matter of removal of barricades and obstacles placed in the name of the security of Minhajul Quran on a major road in Model Town’s M Block .

Petitioner, Model Town Welfare Society, through its Joint Secretary Habibur Rehman submitted that the police, the district administration and Minhajul Quran had put barricades and obstacles on the road in the name of ensuring the security of the Madrassa Idara Minhajul Quran building. The petitioner had named the district coordination officer, the Capital City Police officer, the director general of the Lahore Development Authority, the Lahore commissioner and the Idara Minhajul Quran as respondents. He said the barricades and obstacles had become a nuisance for residents as the security personnel frisked every person passing through the area.

He prayed to the court to declare the arrangement illegal and unlawful and order the respondents to remove the barricades and obstacles from the road.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2010.