KARACHI, March 30: Like the previous city government, the present one has not yet paid any attention to the non-functioning of the only well-equipped slaughterhouse in the Cattle Colony, Landhi, which has been lying closed for more than 35 years now.

Due to its closure, butchers are forced to slaughter animals in a makeshift slaughterhouse, opposite the abattoir, which has been functioning even without basic facilities and has poor hygienic conditions.

Sources in the city government said that the closed abattoir had been established by the now defunct KMC at a cost of Rs30 million in 1970. The machinery had been imported from Yugoslavia and proper skinning, blood-processing, cold storage and other facilities were made available to it.

Unfortunately, the abattoir had to be closed only one week after being opened. The reason was the immense pressure from religious forces which held that Islam prohibits slaughtering animal with machines.    Since then, no serious efforts have been made by any authority to revive the abattoir.

At present, only two slaughterhouses are functioning in the city, one at New Karachi and the other in Landhi, under the city government’s control.

Sources pointed out that the objection raised by religious scholars was confined to the way of inflicting the first cut on the animal to kill it. This means that if ‘Jhatka’ through the machine is not applied, there was no other problem in operating the machines.

In almost all Islamic countries, machines are used for the follow-up process after beheading the animal strictly under Islamic rules. Due to the continued closure of the abattoir, illegal slaughter houses have sprung up in different parts of the city, the sources claimed.

They recalled that an initiative had been taken by a former KMC administrator, Brig (r) Abdul Haq, in 2000-01 to revive the abattoir through some private company but the then governor Mohammadmian Soomro had objection to his plan.   At present, the abattoir building is in good shape but rust has rendered the costly machinery dumped there almost destroyed. —Online