Police impounded 72 non-lactating cattle head on Sept 11, 2003, and arrested six truck drivers on the charge of smuggling them to Afghanistan. A case was registered against them under Section 159/89 of the Customs Act.
The special court of customs on Saturday released the six accused on bail.
Khan Mohammad, a courier who transports cattle from Peshawar to Afghanistan, waited in the police station for the release of the animals, but the court remained undecided on their fate. He is one of the 12 couriers who have set up a small camp adjacent to the police station to look after the 72 buffaloes and cows tied up there.
“It is for the first time that police have impounded cattle in such a large number. In the past, whenever the police stopped us, we paid Rs200 as fine to them to let us go,” Khan Mohammad said.
“We provide Rs3,000 fodder daily to the cattle, which is proving quite expensive,” Khan Mohammad said. They had also eaten up grass and bushes on the green-belt, denuding the hedges, he said.
A city development and municipal department official had picked up a buffalo as “compensation” for spoiling the green-belt, Khan Mohammad said.
He said he and his other colleagues were paid Rs4,000 per truck for taking animals across the border by the cattle owners.
Owing to improper care at the open place in front of the police station, seven of the animals had become sick, he maintained.
“Last night, one of the policemen kicked me, asking me to milk a buffalo,” another cattle courier Shabbir said, adding that it took a long time to convince the cop that these cattle were non-lactating.