MIRPURKHAS/KARACHI: More than 60 cattle heads, including goats and sheep, died after grazing a piece of pasture allegedly sprayed with pesticides and drinking from a watercourse contaminated with poison in Jhando Kaloi village near Digri town on Wednesday.

Sindh Minister of Home Ziaul Hasan Lanjar ordered an inquiry into the incident to ascertain reasons leading to the death of animals in unusually large numbers, said officials.

Owners of the cattle, Arshad Kaloi, Moosa Kaloi, Arif Kaloi and others, told reporters that their herds of goat and sheep went grazing in the nearby field early in the morning and about 60 of them started dying one after the other before their very eyes after eating the grass and drinking from a watercourse.

Home minister orders probe into unusually large number of animal deaths

They said that they suspected conspiracy behind mass deaths of animals and believed their rivals might have poisoned the cattle by spraying the piece of field with pesticides and mixing poison in the watercourse. Some of their cows were also affected by poisoning, they said.

They demanded the government send a team of veterinary doctors to the village to save the remaining cattle. They had suffered huge losses after the mass murder of their livestock, they said.

Home minister orders inquiry

The unusually large number of deaths of cattle in a single incident prompted the home minister, Ziaul Hasan Lanjar, to order an inquiry into the causes that led to their death, according to officials.

The minister’s spokesperson Sohail Ahmed Jokhio told Dawn that about 100 goats had died reportedly after eating some poisonous grass.

He hinted at the possibility of personal enmity behind the tragedy and sought details from Mirpurkhas SSP about the incident.

The minister also directed police to carry out a thorough probe to ascertain facts and take strict legal action against the suspect(s) found involved in the animals death in light of findings of the inquiry.

Mr Jokhio said: “District police is lodging an FIR and an inquiry committee led by DSP CIA has been constituted to probe the incident.”

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2024