CHITRAL: All the species of predators are at high risk of being killed in retaliation by the herdsmen to save their livestock as there is no provision of compensation with the wildlife department for the owners of the domestic animals killed by the carnivores.

Ahmed Khan, a resident of Barghuzi in Koh area, told Dawn that two days before the Eidul Fitr, a predator, believed to be lynx, killed as many as 46 goats of a herdsman of his village inflicting a heavy loss on him, but the wildlife department told him that they had no compensation for him.

He said that the predation of livestock in the high pastures in the summer season happened quite often, but not in a single case, the predator had been killed by the law-abiding people who held the law in high-esteem and restrained themselves from opening fire even in the air to ward it off.

The regional program manager of Snow Leopard Foundation (SLF) in Chitral, Shafiqullah Khan said that compensation to the herdsmen losing their livestock to the predators was inevitable as they heavily depended on it for their sustenance.

He said that the experience of SLF proved quite fruitful and needed to be replicated in some villages of Lower Chitral where community was financially strengthened in lieu of which they became the guards of snow leopard.

Divisional forest officer of wildlife division Chitral, Idrees Khan said that there was no provision of compensation for the owner of domesticated animal hunted by the predators in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Wildlife and Biodiversity (Protection, Preservation, Conservation and Management) Act 2015.

SMUGGLER ESCAPES FROM POLICE CUSTODY: An Afghan smuggler of opium made good his escape from the police station of Garam Chashma after breaking the ventilator of the toilet.

Sources told Dawn that an Afghan national had been arrested from the Pak-Afghan border area with heavy quantity of opium and his physical remand was secured from the local court and was shifted to the Garam Chashma police station for investigation.

They said that when the accused did not came out of the toilet for long time, the door was broken only to find that he had fled from the room breaking the ventilator.

Two of the staff, including investigation officer of the case, were arrested under sections 223 and 224 of PPC for their negligence, and were later freed on bail.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2020