The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday ordered the Punjab Wildlife Department to submit a report on the demolition of a pet market in the walled city within 30 days and decide on a framework to prevent such incidents from occurring again, according to the lawyer who filed the petition with the court.
A demolition operation was carried out at a bird market in Lahore’s Bhati Chowk area, near Data Darbar last Friday by the Lahore Development Authority (LDA), with shopkeepers accusing the Punjab government of killing dozens of birds and other caged pets; allegations the government has denied. This incident led to public outrage as the animals were not moved during the demolition.
Animal rights lawyer Altamush Saeed filed a petition with the LHC on Saturday, naming the Punjab government, the Punjab Wildlife and Fisheries Department and the LDA, as respondents.
A press release stated that the court ordered the Wildlife Department to submit a “comprehensive report” on the matter.
It added that LHC Judge Shehram Sarwar ordered the Wildlife Department to treat Saeed’s petition as a “formal representation” and submit a comprehensive report to the court on the demolition within 30 days.
According to the lawyer, the department was ordered to include in its report the details and causes of the demolition, a concrete road map to ensure similar incidents do not happen in the future, criminal action against those responsible, and training and sensitivity programmes to promote “empathy and responsibility” towards animals within the Punjab government and its departments.
The press release also stated that if the Wildlife Department does not submit the report within the 30-day deadline, they would be “brought back before the court under contempt proceedings”.
“These deaths were entirely preventable. Had the [LDA] coordinated with the Wildlife Department, these animals could have been safely relocated,” the press release read.
In separate comments to media, Saeed stated that the department had an obligation to coordinate with the LDA to protect the animals at the market.
“The legal issue is that [with] the demolition and everything that happened, the Wildlife Department had to be involved for the relocation of the animals,” he explained to media. “That did not happen and that is why the animals died.
“Secondly, there’s no accountability from the LDA as well, therefore sending this matter to Wildlife — which has the right authority and the legal authority under the Punjab Wildlife Act — to not only take criminal action, but also to devise some kind of framework that [ensures] this does not happen again.”
Saeed noted that the department should have been involved from he beginning since they were the right authority to decide on the matter, adding that had the issue gone directly to the LDA, “we would have lost”.
“You can clearly see that the LDA did everything unilaterally; the department does not have the jurisdiction to deal with wild animals, it also does not have the expertise,” Saeed stated.
“We have no idea when the animals were relocated, we have no idea where they’re actually relocated. Secondly, it’s not in their (the LDA) legal domain to do so.”
The petition — available with media — requested that the court declare the actions of the LDA and the Lahore commissioner and DC’s actions “illegal if [the] killing of animals is proved and to ensure regardless [that] future projects of any kind do involve a safe animal evacuation or relocation program and no animal cruelty”.
It further requested that six of the respondents launch an inquiry into the matter and publicly collect debris and rubble from the demolition site, in order to prove the presence of animals when the structure was torn down.
“In the interim, do not allow any debris excavation without transparency to prevent [the] removal of evidence,” the petition read.
It further requested that the court order the Punjab government “to hold ethics and empathy training on animal and human rights in light of Islam and the policy for government employees and [the] general public in line with Article 9, 9A and 25A of the constitution”.
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