Foreign ministry asked to verify documents

LHC asks foreign ministry to verify claim that Shah was exporting birds to Bahrain, in falcons case.

RAWALPINDI: The Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi Bench on Monday directed Ministry of Foreign Affairs to verify the documents in the falcon’s case.

Justice Shahid Hameed Dar of LHC Rawalpindi Bench told Additional Advocate General to verify the documents from the embassy of Bahrain.

Earlier, 53 falcons were recovered from Benazir Bhutto International Airport in Rawalpindi, in which Syed Mazhar Ali Shah had claimed that he was exporting the birds to Bahrain.

LHC asked the foreign ministry to verify the claim of Shah.

On the previous hearing, LHC bench had suspended the operation of an impugned order of an additional session judge, in which he ordered to hand over the 53 falcons to Shah. But the wild life officials of Loi Bher Park claimed that Shah was illegally exporting these falcons from Pakistan.

LHC also earlier declared that the falcons would remain encaged at the Lahore Zoo but Shah had the liberty to feed these birds.

In a petition filed on October 19, Shah said that he was an authorised agent of Sheikh Ahmad Mehmood Suleman Hamid Al-Khalifa, member of the ruling family of Bahrain. The court once again dismissed his application.

He filed another application before an Additional Sessions Judge on October 28, after which the wildlife officials were ordered to hand over the birds to him.

The wildlife department then filed a writ petition with the LHC Rawalpindi Bench against the impugned order of the ASJ court.

Furthermore, 13 birds died due to lack of proper care after they were given to the Lahore Zoo. The court in its previous hearing had also directed the Lahore Zoo officials to take proper care of the ‘extinct breed’.

According to the details of the case, Syed Arshad Hussain, a wildlife inspector at Loi Bher Park through a writ petition adopted before the court that he along with some other wild life department officials recovered the birds from Benazir Bhutto International Airport on October 14 where the two suspected persons had come on a Land Cruiser.

They unloaded six wooden boxes at the parking of the airport and ran away. The wildlife officials however recovered the birds and took them into custody. After an hour of the incident Shah came to the wildlife park and asked them to hand him over the falcons, claiming to be the rightful owner of the birds.

After that, Shah appeared before the court of Ilaqa Magistrate and said that he went to the wildlife officials at the directions of his Bahraini customers.

According to the petition of wildlife officials, Shah denied ownership of the falcons before Ilaqa Magistrate. The Ilaqa Magistrate dismissed his contentions and directed the wildlife officials to send the falcons to the Lahore Zoo.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 16^th, 2010.