KARACHI: A Customs court indicted on Tuesday a Chinese national and six others in a case pertaining to illegal trade of donkey hides.

Tu Zhong Xiao, Ihtisham Ahmed, his wife Afshan, Daniyal, Jumman, Faisal and Zeeshan Patras were arrested in April this year in Gulistan-i-Jauhar and police had allegedly seized over 4,700 hides worth Rs118 million in the international market from their possession.

The judge of a special court of Customs, excise and taxation read out the charges against the accused. However, the accused pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case. The court summoned the witnesses with direction to record their evidence on Oct 4.

The prosecution said that the hides were brought from Lahore to ship to China, where the animal skins were being used in traditional Chinese medicines, adding that a total of 4,736 hides packed in 592 bags, with each bag containing eight hides of the animal, were seized.

The price of each hide in the international market stood at Rs25,000, thus the estimated worth of the seized hides stood at over Rs118m, it added.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2017