A policeman in Gujrat led a herd of over 40 goats onto a train track to be brutally killed by an express, as revenge against their owner. In this spirit, tragically, we mark the beginning of the holiest of our annual celebrations in Pakistan.
Devout citizens roam the streets and bazaars, browsing through the herds of animals to find the right one for the sacrifice. Abdul Razzaq was a goat-herder, selling his animals along the GT road.
According to him, the policemen wanted to purchase a goat for their boss, at half price. When Razzaq refused to sell, the policemen reportedly untied his goats and herded them over to the tracks, where they were run over by a train coming in to Gujrat from Lahore.
Appallingly, much of the public appears to have reacted to the news with a bemused head shake, and not the sense of dread that naturally follows the thought of a live animal being mangled underneath 160 tons of moving machinery.
A goat may well be a piece of furniture, or more accurately, the cardboard box the furniture arrives in.
We toss it into the back of a Suzuki hard enough to demonstrate our indifference, but gentle enough to avoid unnecessarily damaging the goods.
We let our little ones play with it and drag it about.
We cut through the tape with a pair of scissors, rip open the sides, and remove its contents as we grumble about the packing material littered over the yard.
The policemen who led the goats to their painful deaths, were comfortably apathetic about their victims. To them, the animals symbolised nothing more than the property of their bête noire, its desecration being only as tragic as the financial loss it entails.