LAHORE: Hundreds of kilo unhygienic meat was seized from the provincial capital as well as Gujranwala and Kasur on Friday, sparking a protest by butchers in Lahore.

A team of the City District Government of Lahore’s livestock wing seized about 450 kilo unwholesome meat from various localities.

According to official sources, the team, led by Livestock Department Deputy District Officer Dr Rahat Ali, raided various premises at Shalimar, Kahna, Liaqatabad and Green Town and seized unwholesome meat, including that of underage animals (calves).

“In all the four raids, we have seven butchers arrested and registered cases against them with the respective police stations,” Dr Ali told Dawn.

At Kahna, several butchers gathered and protested against the raiding team for declaring the seized meat as unhygienic.

They claimed they got the animals slaughtered from the government slaughterhouse in Cantonment area before bringing it to Kahna for sale. They said the officials’ action was unjustified.

“It is, in fact, the butchers’ protest that’s unjustified as it is aimed at only mounting pressure on us. They showed us photocopies of the animals’ slaughtering receipts but all of them proved fake,” Dr Ali claimed.

He said the quality of meat before being seized was assessed by a veterinary doctor who declared it as unhygienic. He said an illegal slaughterhouse was also sealed during Friday’s raids.

He pledged that raids on unhygienic meat would continue.

GUJRANWALA: The livestock teams seized 400kg unhealthy meat and arrested two butchers during a crackdown in the Alam Chowk area.

The butchers, identified as Muhammad Asif and Khurram Shahzad, were slaughtering sick animals at their houses when they were raided. The butchers were arrested while the meat was destroyed.

KASUR: Police seized 80kg substandard meat in the Mandi Usmanwala area, and arrested a butcher while his accomplice fled.

On a tip-off, police along with livestock officials raided the shop of Shafiq and recovered substandard meat. Police arrested Shafiq while his accomplice, Ashiq, managed his escape from the scene.

Mandi Usmanwala police registered a case on the complaint of Dr Muhammad Adeel of the livestock department.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2015

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