SWABI, Jan 29: Butchers are selling meat and mutton across the district Swabi at prices set by themselves and not those fixed by the local administration.

According to the price list issued by the administration, meat should be sold at Rs45 and mutton at Rs100 per kg, but the butchers have been selling the former at Rs50 and the latter at Rs120.

Nobody raises a voice as to why butchers have been allowed to charge the public at will.

To make the people buy meat at rates of their own choosing, the butchers had deliberately cut down on the number of animals they slaughter, with the result people make a beeline at their shops.

A butcher, on condition of anonymity, told the truth. He said: “We provide boneless meat to the key officials at the government-fixed prices. Through this strategy, we keep them happy and, in turn, they give us a free hand to ignore the price list.”

Besides in the main market, the butchers in Anbar, Chota Lahore, Topi, Yar Hussain, Tordher, Shewa Adda, Charbagh, Salim Khan and all other meat markets, had adopted the same tactics.

Reports reaching here said the butchers of Murghuz were on strike for the last 20 days as a jirga had told them to sell meat according to the government-fixed rates. They refused to do so.

The Afghan butchers at Gohati and Gandaf camps also sell meat at Rs50 and mutton at Rs120 per kg.

When contacted, an official of the local administration said that all-out efforts would be made for compelling the butchers to follow the government price list.