With only a couple of days left in Eidul Azha, people are seen busy in finding butchers to slaughter animals, which is not an easy task.
Hiring a butcher is the preference for most people, however, engaging a competent person to slaughter sacrificial animals often turns out to be a nerve-testing job.
Animal sacrifice is a main feature of Eidul Azha and Muslims get a spiritual delight and pleasure through sacrifice and distribution of meat among the poor and distressed. Following the Sunnah of Last Prophet (PBUH), some people prefer to sacrifice animals themselves on Eidul Azha. However, hiring a butcher is a usual option for the majority.
In the days of price hike, when people are striving to buy sacrificial animals on proper prices, hiring a competent butcher is a job that entails a lot of stress. To perform religious obligation of sacrifice, the people who cannot afford to buy sacrificial animals, prefer joint-sacrifices of cows or camels owing to high price of goats.
Butchers on the other hand, are also making preparations to slaughter animals of Eid and make huge bucks. However, it is difficult to differentiate the unskilled butcher from the skilled one. Due to dearth of slaughter houses, apprentice, unskilled, semi-skilled, and totally untrained people jump into this profession to make fair amount of money during three days of Eid.
The professional butchers are mostly booked and paid in advance for the first day of Eid and their charges have also increased as compared to the last year. Professional butchers mostly prefer to wait for large orders to earn a big amount at one point and charge heavily on Eid, as the day is celebrated once a year. The rates are at their peak on the first day of Eid, but gradually come down on the next two days. With Eid only few days away, butchers are charging Rs2000- 2200 to slaughter a goat or sheep, Rs5,000-7,000 for a bull or calf and Rs9,000-Rs 10,000 for a camel. Most butchers ask for advance payment before booking orders, although there is small variation in the rates from area to area.
Saidpur Meat and Chicken shop owner at I-10/2, Nisar Ahmad said that Eidul Azha provides an opportunity to the butchers to earn handsome amount by slaughtering as many animals as they can. They charge Rs2000 for a goat and provide quality services. A great change has been observed in the procedures as professional butchers, instead of visiting houses, stay at their shops where people bring in their animals for slaughtering as it saves time, he added. Butchers working in groups earn Rs8,000-Rs10,000 for large animals like cows and bulls on the first day but their income reduces in the following days.
A resident Shehzad said that the untrained butchers cause problems with sacrificial animals, meat, bones and skin. Mincing bones with meat leave the meat useless for cooking and eating. “It is better to pay more amount than to repent on slaughtering animals by inefficient butchers because majority of them venture into this profession to gain experience and earn more on Eid,” he said.
There is a dire need of staying away from these butchers to avoid immediate loss of sacrificial animal. It would not be out of place to mention here that if government opens butchers’ training schools to train and educate people who want to join this field, it would be beneficial for both butchers and meat users. Last but not the least, butchers are the most wanted persons on Eidul Azha. They should act with decency and behave like good citizens with their customers to add to the happiness of auspicious event
