LAHORE: Not all visitors to the zoo in the city are on a pleasure trip. Some have sinister motives as they look for ‘things’ that can be used in black magic.

Black magic thrives as fake ‘pirs’ offer the weirdest of quick remedies to the increasing number of desperate souls. Parts of the bodies of animals and birds are much sought after since these practitioners routinely demand these for use in the casting of black magic on behalf of a client.

A zoo official says these pursuers of black magic come from all backgrounds but they have one thing in common: none of them will ever disclose which pir they have employed to get their wish.

“There are so many people, mostly women, who ask for owl’s blood (by the way the Lahore Zoo does not currently possess an owl),” the source says.

“There have been some desperately seeking elephant’s urine and others have been interested in securing a nail or two of the bear or the lion. There was one inquiry asking if we could provide porcupine spine. The list of absurd demands is endless.”

The zoo official recalls a case where a few years ago an enraged bear had attacked and killed an infant from inside its cage. He claims that the incident, too, was the result of a pir. The pir had asked the parents to take their child so close to a bear where the child could feel the powerful animal’s breath on his face. Tragically, the bear reacted viciously when the father took the child too close to the cage.

The official says the zoo is a place where the most educated succumb to their superstitions. He speaks of a senior bureaucrat who would visit at a certain time to perform a ritual, offering meat to the lions.

There was an MBBS doctor who brought bananas and insisted – unsuccessfully, the official says – on feeding them to the elephant. “The doctor did admit he had been asked to do so by some baba.”

While the zoo minders say these ‘requests’ are sternly turned down the superstitious search does not end here.

Muhammad Jahangir, a taxidermist in the city, says he is frequently approached by people asking for animals or parts of their bodies. “There are so many men who come asking, but men here are outnumbered by women,” he tells Dawn.

Jahangir says in some cases the practitioners of black magic offer their clients to arrange things required for casting a spell. But since the price these practitioners ask for is quite high, many people are forced by their desires to seek for dead animals and parts of their bodies at the ‘likely’ places.

He, too, says the owl is most in demand. “They may ask for an owl’s complete body or an eye, a specific bone, beak or blood. Wild boar’s bones are also much in demand,” Jahangir says. He hastens to add he does not get involved in this business which according to him is a source of income for many at the city’s pet-animal markets.

There have been police crackdowns on the pirs and aamils (literally, practitioner) who boast of possessing powers to carry out black magic.

For example, the Sheikhupura police had arrested faith healer Basharat in April 2014 in the wake of a horrifying incident in which he had allegedly chopped off head of an elderly woman for pulling out evil forces from her body.

He told the police that he had dumped head of the woman in a field and threw her body into a canal. The woman had approached the faith healer to get rid of the ‘evil forces’.

Similarly, Peer Amanat Ali, whose real name was Khalid Javed, had spread his messages through the print and electronic media wherein he claimed to be helpful to the people facing any sort of problem such as failure in love marriage, infertility, tension in family, counter of magic and so on.

The police investigations revealed that a citizen Karamat Ali, after reading Amanat’s message, contacted him for the treatment of his ailing baby. The Peer asked him to pay Rs10,000 to purchase a dead owl claiming that black animal which is rare in the market would help recover his baby from the evil disease. The faith healer had claimed to return money in case of failure in the treatment of his baby.

On finding no signs of relief from the months-long treatment process, Karamat demanded money but the Peer asked him to pay more through easy paisa service. Later, on the complaint of Karamat, the police arrested the fake healer and lodged a case against him under sections 506, 386, 420, 468, 471 of the PPC.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2014