Pakistan: Dead chicken and deadbeat officials

Frontier Post

After the initial arrests of the drivers transporting three-containers full of chicken meat, the Peshawar district authorities have not taken any action to apprehend the owner of the warehouse, the supplier of the unhealthy chicken meat and the proprietors of food outlets in the city who were to cater the same to their valued but unsuspecting customers. The containers were despatched from Punjab and the chickens, which were said to have died of natural causes and then sliced to pieces, were to be distributed to hotels of the Khyber Pakthunkhwa metropolis. The first concern is religious. Animals and birds dying of natural causes are not kosher according to Muslim jurisprudence. The second concern is health: According to the officials who seized the containers from a warehouse on Chamkani Road, the chicken meat had gone stale and the odour was so intense that the raiding personnel could not stand it. It is obvious that the said chicken meat was not fit for human or even animal consumption and yet it was to be supplied to hotels, restaurants and fast food joints and fed to customers. These customers would have been paying many times more for the unhealthy food than they would have spent if they had cooked freshly slaughtered chicken at their homes. The three containers could not have contained less then about thirty to sixty kilograms of stale and unhealthy chicken meat. Supply of such quantity of the stale chicken leads one to suspect that most of the hotels and fast food joints were to get the same. The reason for this belief is that all food outlets have long-term contracts with suppliers and that no supplier would in his right mind transport perishable goods unless he has confirmed buyers. This creates the notion that the supply of unhealthy chicken may have been going on for quite sometime. Nobody knows for how long the people of Peshawar have been paying high prices in trendy outlets for unhealthy food treated with vinegar and spices to kill the odour. Yet unhealthy and stale chicken meat is not the only food item transported to this province from Punjab. There have, also been instances of unhealthy beef and mutton arriving from that province, also. We did not see the official outrage in the case of stale beef and mutton and by the inaction, it seems, we would see no action in this recent incident. Such illegal operations cannot run either without official patronage or without the active cooperation of those who cater to the end-user. Nevertheless, the high officials have not taken upon themselves to direct and supervise action in this regard. We, it seems, have lost all our religious and health sensitivities. After all what goes around comes around: it seems senseless, but it seems anyway, that those on the high posts in the provincial government think that they and their families can avoid eating this non-kosher and unhealthy food. Whatever, those in government choose for themselves, The Frontier Post and the people of Peshawar demand that action should be immediately taken in this regard and all the culprits responsible for this horrendous crime be apprehended. For once we will like to see a meaningful action against the criminals who have lost all sensitivities to peoples’ religious feelings the care for their health.