Meat of dead horses, donkeys and other animals was recovered from butchers in the Ghalib Market police limits on Tuesday, reported “The news.” The recovery of the meat has once again rung alarm bells among the citizens as what they are eating in the name of high priced mutton and what the government is doing to check the heinous crime. Police while checking a rickshaw recovered the meat. A butcher in the rickshaw admitted that the meat was of a dead horse and a donkey and he was going to supply the meat to butchers in the Ghalib Market area. Police immediately called the district administration officials who raided the spot identified by the arrested butcher. The district administration said the raiding team recovered 40 maunds of meat of dead horses and donkeys from the shops. The shops have been sealed, the officials said. Similar cases had already been reported in the city and the continuity of this heinous crime suggests that there is some lacuna in checking and process adopted by the Livestock Department to clear the butchers and meat on daily basis in the city. Citizens said they were paying heavy rates of mutton but in return they were getting meat of dead animals, donkeys and horses. They urged the government to tighten its grip on the supply of meat in the city. The raid was more a result of serendipity than any strategy on the part of the government to regulate the quality of meat. There is no department to register and regulate the quality of meat stores, nor is there any regular testing of the quality of meat being sold by vendors or even larger establishments. Similar cases of substandard or falsely advertised meat sales continue to be reported across the spectrum but there is still no institutionalised response to the issue. It is quite likely that the results of the testing on the recovered meat will not be publically shared nor will the fate of those who were charged with the crime. What has also not been resolved is what nature of crime does the selling of such meat fall under. Is it a consumer rights infringement or a criminal offence to sell the wrong type of meat? There are two issues with the meat: the first is hygiene and health-related, the other is religious. For a country that prides itself on purity, the fact that major meat markets in Lahore were selling horse meat is a worrying sign.
pk.shafaqna.com
