January 12, 2008	Saturday	Muharram 02,1429

MUZAFFARGARH, Jan 11: The annual camel wrestling contest, which also marks the beginning of a new year, was held in the first week of January this season at Basti Bareen after a break of one year.

Last year, District Police Officer Rai Muhammad Tahir did not allow holding of the event due to ‘security reason’ in the Muzaffargarh district.

Five areas, Budh, Muradabad, Kot Addu, Chowk Qureshi, Chowk Ghulam Aliwala and Basti Bareen, are the venues for the camel wrestling every year.

To make the event possible this year, organiser Malik Shahid Kazim has come up with a novel idea to make Pakistan Muslim League-Q candidates as chief guest. He got printed pictures of PML-Q candidates in posters of `mela’ and the trick worked as organisers faced no hindrance from any quarters while police provided them the security needed.

However, both PML-Q candidates, Mian Khalid Gurmani (NA-177) and Jawad Khar (PP-255) did not venture to grace the occasion because emotions of public were boiled after the assassination of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

Last year, only wrestling of the `patwari wala’ could be held in February, while the main competition organized by Malik Shahid Kazim could not be held on account of ban imposed by district administration. Mr Kazim said he had to suffer a loss of Rs1 million.

About 10,000 people were present to watch the camel wrestling at Basti Bareen this year on Jan 3 under the protection of handful of policemen. Every entrant is charged Rs100. Camel wrestlers had come from Dera Ghazi Khan, Layyah and Bahawalpur while competitors from Sindh boycotted the event due to Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.

Mr Kazim said the main camel wrestlers of Punjab and Sindh were Oneveri, Chandiwala, Momin and Moriwala.

Since winter is the mating season of camels, they are charged and fight vigorously against their opponents.

Amid four judges, whose decisions are binding, started the wrestling of about a dozen camels at 1pm. Dozens of people circled the fighters to control the situation in case they went wild.

Holding sticks in their hands, the judges can thrash the camel if it attacks sensitive organs of its rival in the fight.

Two veterinary doctors remain alert to provide the first-aid treatment to the injured camel.

Malik Shaukat, a fan of camel fighting, said the camel quickly learnt the art of wrestling if it was trained properly.

Allah Wasaya, the owner of a wrestler, said that camel wrestlers live together peacefully, but in the ring they were ready to kill each other.

The fight between Oneveri, a known camel of Punjab, and Chandiwala wrapped up soon when the latter left the ring and ran away. The Oneveri first pulled his opponent and then pushed him back with barrages of kicks. After the fight, all drummers ran towards the Oneveri and danced around it. Organizers gave Rs150,000 to the owner of Oneveri wrestler.

In the next fight, the Momin wrestler defeated Moriwala camel.

Before wrestling, the people offered fateha for the late PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.