Ibex hunting

If a single picture could highlight the numerous ailments that a society suffers from, the newspapers of February 10 must be thanked profusely. The picture of a 13-year-old boy, in which the boy can be seen with the freshly killed body of a beautiful Himalayan ibex, could not have been more distressing and more descriptive of the numerous ways we seem to have parted ways with sanity. Is a 13-year-old boy authorised to obtain a gun license?

Can a child be issued a permit for hunting an ibex? If not, has the government decided to initiate action against the authorities concerned for issuing illegal hunting permits? Is it ethical to permit killing of precious and largely dwindling population of our wild life? Have we forgotten what the people feel against those who arrive every year to massacre our endangered Houbara Bustards? Perhaps the media could have been more discreet in projecting this event as an achievement instead of a moment of soul searching.

Naeem Sadiq and Mahera Omar

Karachi