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LAHORE, Oct 16: Lahorites may be taking unhygienic and contaminated meat as there are only two veterinarians who are supposed to do ante-mortem and post-mortem of 15,000 animals brought to the Bakar Mandi slaughter house everyday.
Though inadequate in number, the vets pay little attention to their duty and clear every kind of stuff entering the abattoir. Reasons for their keeping the eyes shut are not difficult to guess.
Not a single animal, out of the 15,000 that underwent the ‘medical examination’ (when this correspondent visited the slaughter house a couple of days ago) was rejected, although there were a number of animals too weak to walk.
Shahid, one of the vets at the slaughter house, said it was not possible for them to medically examine all the animals. He said a vet could hardly examine 500 animals in the given time.
To ensure that healthy animals were slaughtered, he said, the abattoir needed at least 30 vets.
Answering a question, he said normally a pregnant animal was rejected because it was easy to spot.
A man stamping slaughtered animals said the “doctors usually check purchase receipts and allow the animals in.”
A butcher claimed that the vets took Rs500 for allowing a sick or an under-aged animal into the abattoir.
He admitted that butchers’ priority was to buy animals at cheaper rates and they were least bothered about their health. “If the animals are examined properly, hundreds will be rejected daily for being sick or old,” he claimed.
The process of shifting the meat to shops in different parts of the city is equally unsafe. Containers of pick-ups, carts, rickshaws and other vehicles, engaged by the butchers on contract, are not cleaned before loading fresh meat.
According to Mr Shahid, there is every possibility that the fresh meat is contaminated by last day’s blood stains in the container.
On the way, the consignment which is seldom covered gathers dust and other flying particles.
SANITATION: No effort was made to improve sanitation at the slaughter house even after the UAE refused to import meat from Pakistan last year mainly because of poor sanitation at abattoirs throughout the country.
The ban, it was learnt, was imposed after UAE experts visited the Lahore and Karachi slaughter houses.
The Metropolitan Corporation of Lahore (MCL) which is responsible for improving sanitation earns more than Rs100 million annually from the slaughter house and Bakar Mandi.
It charges Rs10 for a goat and Rs30 for a cow or a buffalo at the slaughter house and Rs 30 and Rs 90 each, respectively, before the animals enter the Bakar Mandi. On average, 10,000 goats and 5,000 cows and buffaloes are slaughtered daily.
The slaughter house waste is dumped in the nearby vicinity since there is no proper disposal system.
Vets who are supposed to examine fodder given to the animals hardly do their duty.
Animals are brought to Lahore from all over the province, mainly from Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan, Sadiqabad, Lodhran, Leiah and Jhang.
