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Thursday March 28, 2024

Minister rules out ‘immediate danger’ of donkey meat’s consumption in Sindh

By Azeem Samar
April 29, 2017

Khuhro says provincial food authority will be activated very soon

The concerned lawmakers were assured during Friday’s session of the Sindh Assembly that there was no immediate danger of the consumption of donkey meat anywhere in the province following discovery of more than 4,700 donkey hides in Karachi.

The assurance came from Food and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro after an opposition lawmaker expressed concern over the seizure of 4,736 donkey hides during a raid on a Gulistan-e-Jauhar shop earlier this week.

Police had also arrested seven members of a gang, including a Chinese national, during Wednesday’s raid. The hides were said to have been transported from Lahore to Karachi, from where they were supposed to be smuggled to China.

MPA Muhammad Dilawar Qureshi of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan urged the government to inform the house about its policy to handle the problem.

He described the discovery of such a large number of donkey hides as alarming. He said the price of a single hide was around Rs25,000 and a donkey sold from Rs100,000 to Rs300,000. 

“How come the owner of a donkey can be persuaded to sell its hide for mere Rs25,000 when the sale of the animal could fetch him a much bigger sum of money?” he asked.

“The meaning of it is quite clear that donkey meat, its siri, paya and other parts, are being consumed elsewhere. This is a big question as to where this meat is being consumed.”

Qureshi said there was a possibility that the meat was being used in cooking lavish food dishes being served in restaurants and households.

Responding to his query, Khuhro said in a lighter vein that he did not know as who had consumed that meat and who did not. 

He said the policy of the provincial government was clear on the issue as it was an alarming incident. He said news reports clearly stated that the donkey hides were transported to Karachi from Lahore. The food minister said there was no question of consumption of donkey meat in Sindh because hides had been brought from Lahore. The food department had been maintaining strict vigilance, he said, adding that the Sindh Assembly had adopted a law for establishing the provincial food authority and very soon the authority would be activated.

 

Chikungunya  

Health Minister Dr Sikandar Mandhro informed the house that no death had been reported in the province in the recent days due to the suspected epidemic of the Chikungunya virus.

He was responding to a call-attention notice of opposition lawmaker Heer Ismail Soho of the MQM-P, who wanted to know about the steps being taken by government to prevent further spread of Chikungunya in different parts of the province.  

The minister said the spread of the virus came to fore in December 2016 when patients were diagnosed with the disease in the Saudabad area of Malir. At that time, 63,000 patients were reported alone from the affected areas of the Malir district where more suspected cases of Chikungunya were reported as were from Korangi, Orangi and some other parts of the city.

He said the death rate due to the Chikungunya virus was one person out of 1,000 persons. He said the health authorities had conducted tests on all suspected cases and 40 percent of the results of such tests came in negative, meaning that people on whom the tests conducted were not affected by Chikungunya.

Dr Mandhro informed the house that some vaccine had to be administered to treat a viral disease, but so far no vaccine had been prepared to treat Chikungunya. He said that after suspected cases of viral diseases were reported from different parts of the province, samples of mosquitoes had been collected, but the species of Asian tiger mosquito, , which was considered responsible for spreading the viral disease, had not been found anywhere in the province.