HYDERABAD: Police and Rangers personnel carried out raids on unauthorised collection/storage points for hides and skins of sacrificial animals in various parts of the interior of Sindh during Eid days and rounded up several activists of different parties and groups.

In Hyderabad, about a dozen activists were picked up and a few of them were booked and arrested for violating the code of conduct prescribed by the home department for collection of hides and skins.

Special permission was given to a number of parties, including the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and groups to accept donation of sacrificial hides and skins at their designated collection points without making announcements by using loudspeakers, sending workers to donors’ houses or forcing anyone to donate the hides and skins to any particular party or group. No banned organisation was allowed to collect hides and skins on the occasion.

According to police and Rangers officials, they intervened wherever a violation of the ban or code of conduct was noticed/reported. Raids were conducted accordingly to seize the hides and skins collected by unauthorised organisations/individuals and the persons in possession of the hides/skins were taken into custody.

Reports said that Nawaz Baloch was picked up in the Pucca Qila ground, Kamran, Anwar and Kashif -- all brothers -- in Sarfaraz Colony, Haroon Moin, Amir Shamshad and M. Rafiq in Effendi town, Aijaz Noon in the Site area and Saleem was picked up in Latifabad’s Unit-8. Another four suspects, whose names could not be ascertained, were taken into custody in the Masokhan Lane area near Tilak Incline.

A local MQM leader said that some of the detained party workers were let off after being interrogated and the others obtained a bail from a magistrate on Saturday.

ST statement

Fort police booked three persons -- Hanif, Riaz and Ghaffar -- for renting out their vehicles to unauthorised activists for collection of hides and skins. They were later released a bail granted to them by a duty magistrate.

Meanwhile, a Rangers team raided the Hyderabad Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education on Saturday night on a tip-off that some unauthorised people had collected hides and skins and secretly brought them into the building. The Rangers team carried out an extensive search of the building but it was not known whether they found the stock inside or not.

A Pakistan Sunni Tehreek (PST) activist, Khalid Hassan Attari, said in a statement issued on Sunday that the hides and skins collected by the party’s social wing, the Ahle Sunnat Foundation, were confiscated by “state institutions”.

The statement said that the donations were seized despite the fact that PST and its social wing followed the relevant code of conduct. On the other hand, it claimed, some banned outfits freely collected hides and skins.

SUKKUR: A Rangers team raided MQM camps at Ghaznavi Park and Bunder Road on on the first day of Eid and seized 308 hides and skins. An MQM worker, Adeel Qureshi, was taken into custody.

Later, the seized stock was handed over to the Edhi Centre, which acknowledged the receipt.

Sukkur SSP Tanveer Tunio explained to the media that no organisation or individual was authorised to set up such camps or collect the donation without obtaining a permission from the home department.

MIRPURKHAS: A team of Satellite police along with Rangers personnel seized a stock of 1,330 hides and skins during a raid on a warehouse in the Rahim Nagar area and arrested its operator, his son and a worker on Saturday.

Police said the raid was carried out on an information that the warehouse operator, Sher Mohammed Qureshi, was trading in hides and skins collected by unauthorised people and organisations.

His son, Ghulam Haider Qureshi, and a worker, Dildar Rajput, found busy trading in the goods were arrested and an amount of Rs46,800 found in their possession was also seized,according to reports.

The three suspects were booked at the Satellite police station.The suspect, along with seven others, was booked and handed over to the B-Section police.

NAWABSHAH: An MQM office in the Old Nawabshah locality was raided on the first day of Eid by a joint team of police and Rangers personnel.

Advocate Dr Abdul Majeed, said to be the zonal in-charge in the MQM organisational structure, was arrested and an unspecified number of hides and skins found in the office were confiscated. The raiding team claimed that the hides and skins were collected in violation of the prescribed code of conduct

Published in Dawn, September 28th , 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play