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A visit to the colony revealed that the calves, collected at a spot for sale, were acutely malnourished and were being cruelly handled.
The calf separated from the mother soon after birth is a burden on the financially stretched dairy farmer who wants to sell the milk instead of feeding it to the calf whose meat is later sold as mutton and fetches big price in the market, say senior veterinary surgeons.
Thousands of mature dairy animals, most of them dry but of productive age, are also slaughtered on a weekly basis in the colony as no government support exists to help animals recuperate.
Dawn's team spotted two places where big animals were being slaughtered on the roadside while a large number of dry animals were being sold near the old slaughterhouse.
No place in the colony was free from foul smell and heaps of dung could be seen everywhere.
According to experts, the indiscriminate slaughter of animals is decades old and continues because there has been no government investment in breeding, feeding and management of livestock at Cattle Colony, Karachi's prime source of milk and meat established in the 1950s.
There are no separate farms for meat at the colony and dairy animals rendered dry after one or two lactation periods are slaughtered for meat.
The cost of a good buffalo breed has risen from 50,000 to 100,000 over the past five years and experts believe that if effective measures were not taken to preserve the animal, it would be replaced by cow completely in coming years.
Slaughtering of calves
People gathered to sell more than 100 calves in the colony were not willing to part with correct information. A few of them claimed that dairy farmers from the interior of Sindh would buy and raise them though the condition of some calves showed that they could not survive the journey.
Sources revealed that between 400 and 500 newly born calves are slaughtered daily and a considerable number of the animals are underage. According to the Karachi Municipal Corporation Slaughterhouse Bye-Laws 1975, “No goat, lamb, sheep, ox, buffalo or cow under 12 months of age shall be slaughtered at the municipal slaughterhouse or any other place within the limits of the corporation.”
Giving reasons for slaughtering calves, dairy farmers claimed that they didn't have the space, manpower and resources to raise buffalo calves while there was no system developed by the government to support them in this regard.
“There is no milk replacement available for calves in Pakistan either,” they said.
Cow calves, fewer in number, however, do not meet with the same fate. And this is because cow calves grow mature earlier than buffalo calves which remain on mother milk for longer than the cow calf, according to dairy farmers.
“A cow gives double the quantity of milk produced by a buffalo. As buffaloes are getting expensive, we rely more on cows for milk. Cow calves are preferred to be raised for meat. Buyers show interest in female buffalo calves, but there is little hope of life for a male of the same species,” a farmer said.
Dairy farmers claimed that the practice of slaughtering newly-born calves was not as rampant as it used to be a few years back.
“Seventy per cent dairy animals arrive from Punjab and the rest from the interior of Sindh. A young calf is the evidence that the animal is fresh and ready to produce milk. Hence, its presence is necessary at the time of purchase,” said Dr Rafiquddin Babar, a psychiatrist and dairy farmer.
“Earlier, 90 per cent claves were brought with their mothers and slaughtered at Cattle Colony. But now the situation is different. A majority of animal traders do not bring calves here as they have realised that they might die during the journey and, therefore, they sell them in Punjab. Farmers from the interior of Sindh also buy calves at Cattle Colony.”
This opinion was endorsed by other dairy farmers who believed that only 10 per cent of slaughtering of calves might be left at Cattle Colony.
Since no credible survey exists, one cannot be sure about the exact number of calves being slaughtered daily. But, if there are 300,000 animals at Cattle Colony, as dairy farmers usually claim, even 10 per cent of this number of animals would be very high.
Trauma of animals
Studies have shown that the separation of a calf from its mother puts enormous stress on both animals and is often associated with different diseases. One research found that the maternal bond was formed in as little as five minutes.
Jamil Memon, a dairy farmer who owns 10,000 animals and has farms on the Superhighway and in Kotri, said “Buffaloes forget their calves in one or two days. But a cow does not. It gets itself injured, reduces milk production and it is in the farmer's own interest to return the calf.”
Asked about the capacity of dairy farmers in raising buffalo calves, he said there was little hope for a calf to survive in filth.
“Cattle Colony is littered with filth and farms are too congested. Farmers are poor and lack resources. Successive governments have literally done nothing to attend to their basic problems,” he said.
'No power to fine'
Responding to question regarding illegal slaughtering, Dr Ali Zafar Zaidi, district officer of the veterinary services, said that raids were conducted to check this practice but the officers lacked powers to fine or punish offenders.
“We don't have the powers to fine or punish people involved in illegal slaughtering. These powers rest with the town municipal officer under the Sindh Local Government Ordinance 2001. But strangely enough, he has no powers to conduct a raid to check illegal slaughtering,” he said, adding that he had submitted a proposal for calf rearing two years back which was still pending the enterprise and investment promotion department of the city district government.
There was no project in the entire Sindh for calf rearing. The responsibility of livestock management and breeding came under the provincial department, he said.
Speaking to Dawn, Dr Ghulam Sarwar, director-general of the animal husbandry Sindh, said the government had initiated a number of projects for livestock management, though with little success.
“We have tried to establish links between people operating at Cattle Colony and dairy farmers in rural Sindh, and there are people who are benefiting from it. But, yes, their number is quiet small and only 10 per cent animals are taken for recuperation to the rural areas. Cattle Colony is facing some serious problems which can't be solved without the city government's support.
“These include giving the people property rights so they can borrow money from banks and work for their wellbeing and providing them with proper sanitation services,” he said, adding that the scale of illegal slaughtering would definitely come down if the city government starts punishing the offenders.
