Unhygienic meat on the rise

TAXILA, May 1: The butchers in the city are playing havoc with the people's health by selling unhealthy and unhygienic meat and the practice is going on with absolute impunity as the officials of tehsil municipal administration and food department are reluctant to take any action against them for the reasons best known to them. Though local administration has fixed prices of different commodities in the markets, there exists no mechanism to check quality of meat being sold at the shops, the consumers said this while talking to this reporter. They alleged that most of the butchers injected water into the veins of the slaughtered animals to increase their weight. "The butchers have virtually turned their shops into slaughterhouses in connivance with the authorities concerned. The hygiene conditions at these shops are too poor," said Khursheed Chughtai, a government servant. The quality of meat at most of the shops is very poor, as butchers slaughter unhealthy animals, said Kehkashan Tanveer, a housewife. Dr Zia Hassan, a resident of Bilal Colony said that the butchers' shops were mostly located at the main roads and the meat remained hanging outside the shops throughout the day as it got contaminated with numerous germs and thus became a health hazard. A butcher requesting not to be named said that they bribed the officials concerned on monthly basis to get the slaughtered animals stamped without any formal inspection. He said that the local butchers could not go to the slaughter house because it lacked proper arrangements. It was learnt that influential butchers slaughtered the animals in their houses without fulfilling the legal and hygienic requirements. When asked, a physician Dr Mohammad Ramzan Abdullah told this reporter that the meat available in the markets was infected with a number of deadly bacteria and was unfit for human consumption, causing dangerous diseases like typhoid, pneumonia, urinary tract infection and hemorrhagic colitis. It is important to mention here that no butcher has been fined or imprisoned for this charge for the last many months. The people from different walks of life called upon the local administration and health authorities to take action against the stale meat sellers.