PESHAWAR, Nov 3: The district administration has banned setting camps for collecting hides of sacrificial animals and dumping the same in the city during Eidul Azha owing to security reasons.

District Coordination Officer Siraj Ahmed Khan told Dawn that administration imposed Section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code to forbid dumping of animal hides in the city.

“The dumping of animal hides would be allowed at specified open spaces along the Ring Road, outside Peshawar city,” Mr Khan said, adding that the measure had been necessitated owing to security considerations. Traditionally, Cinema Road was the main centre where hides of sacrificial animals were sold and purchased on every Eid. The area also receives a large number of visitors because of cinema houses, screening new Pashto films on every Eid.

In the past, numerous camps used to be set up in different localities by various organisations, conducting concerted campaigns to collect animal hides for financing their charity works in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and elsewhere.

The fresh restrictions on dumping of animal hides anywhere in the city, said the DCO, would apply across the board.

While the administrative measure would partially control the nuisance of fowl smell caused by the piled up animal hides, it has shifted the Eid-specific animal hides' business from the traditional market to the city's outskirts, creating business and employment opportunities for many, according to business circles.

Sher Dil, a commission agent dealing in animal hides, said that Cinema Road's godowns did not operate during the last two years because of the restrictions on transporting hides from other areas to inside Peshawar. As a result, many sales points had been set up at Kohat Road, he added.

“The security risks have not undermined the business, only the centre of business has shifted outside Peshawar,” he said.

The Cinema Road market used to trade 10,000 to 15,000 hides on every Eid in the past, according to Dawer Khan, a manager at one of the godowns that supply animal hides to tanneries in Punjab and Karachi.

ROADS: The military authorities and civil administration of Peshawar have agreed to local traders' demand and decided that Saddar and Arbab roads will not be closed to traffic on the upcoming Eid, according to a press release.

A delegation of Markazee Tanzim-i-Tajran, Peshawar Cantonment, held a meeting with Station Commander Brig Naeem Abdul Baqee here on Thursday, to apprise him of the local traders' concerns at closure of main roads in the area owing to security reasons on the upcoming Eidul Azha.

DCO Siraj Ahmed Khan and Cantonment Board Executive Officer Shahroom Safdar Khattak explained the traders' point of view to the station commander on the occasion.

Brig Baqee assured the delegation that the roads would not be closed to vehicular traffic on the Eid.