MURREE/TAXILA: Police have arrested four people in Murree, Attock and Wah on charges of collecting animal hides.

The Murree police have booked a cleric of Jamia Arabia Islamia Sunny Bank and arrested his son and a servant of the madressah for collecting hides illegally.

Several madressahs at the hill station had failed to secure no-objection certificates (NOCs) for collecting hides, though they had submitted application with the town administration some two weeks before Eidul Azha, madressah sources told Dawn.

Under the National Action Plan, NOC is mandatory for collecting hides. The permission was aimed at checking banned organisations from collecting hides.

Murree police SHO Hafeez Khan Niazi told Dawn that the cleric was a fourth scheduler.

Similarly, two persons were arrested from Attock and Wah for illegally collecting hides during Eid days without permission from the district administration.

According to sources, the Attock police during random checking found a man collecting hides. He was arrested when he failed to produce a permit. However, police failed to establish his link with any banned political or religious outfit.

According to the suspect, he was a merchant of hides and purchased them from different people for onward sale to leather factory.

In Wah, ASI Azhar Iqbal raided a seminary and arrested an activist of a religious party for collecting hides without permission from district administration and seized eight hides.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2019