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Kathmandu Thursday December 27, 2001 Paush 12, 2058.
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Hyumat’s
butchers are against slaughterhouse
By Shobha Adhikari
KATHMANDU- Not many people in the Valley may
have heard of a place called Hyumat Tole near Teku. Not even the Valley’s meat eaters
who love their buff momos. Hyumat Tole is a butcher neighbourhood, with much of the
households depending on buffalo flesh for a living on government land.
But Hyumat Tole’s butchers now have an axe
to grind with the Kathmandu Municipal Corporation. They do not want it to go ahead with
the decision to set up a slaughterhouse in Ward 12 of their Tole.
"We won’t let the slaughterhouse to be
put up here. It will occupy 40 ropanis, and the government will smash up our houses. Where
will we go with our small children?" asks infuriated Laxmi Devi Karki whose husband
is one among the dozen or so butchers of Hyumat Tole.
The butchers and their families fear that a
modern slaughterhouse with its slaughter machines will render them jobless and even
shelter-less.
"I am used to receiving 40 rupees for
killing one buffalo. I cut minimum three or four a day. But if a slaughterhouse comes
here, the machines will do all my work. Then I can’t take care of my family, let me
pray to god that this never happens," says an anxious butcher not wanting to be
identified fearing authority action.
The opposition against the slaughterhouse has
been so strong that the KMC officials who went to Hyumat Tole twice to lay the foundation
stone were stopped by the locals.
Hyumat Tole itself is not the greatest sight on
earth nor is it perfumed land. With over 50 buffaloes slaughtered here everyday, the place
is a bloody mess of bovine parts, flies and worms, and reeks as if of all bad smell put
together.
But the butchers think that the place will turn
hygienically even worse with an abattoir because all the Valley’s animal relics will
be dumped here.
The KMC authorities don’t think so. Hygiene
was exactly the factor that made them decide on Hyumat Tole as a slaughterhouse location.
For long, the KMC has been receiving complaints about the unhealthy quality of meat being
supplied by the butchers in the capital. With no real inspecting body to check the health
(nor the age) of the buffaloes before they are slaughtered, sick meat has been a cause of
worry for the Valley’s meat lovers. The KMC says ailments like diarrhoea and jaundice
have caught on in Kathmandu due to consumption of unsafe meat.
"We have to set up a slaughterhouse for the
sake of hygiene. In such a slaughterhouse, buffaloes won’t be killed
indiscriminately, and there will be restriction on the slaughters," says Jyoti Bhusan
Pradhan, Chief of KMC Public Construction Department.
Pradhan says "political whims" are
behind the Hyumat Tole butchers protesting against the slaughterhouse. "It’s
politics that is egging on the people to think negatively, all we are looking for is 10
ropanis of land for a safe and clean slaugherhouse. If we can’t do it at the proposed
place, we might have to do it elsewhere nearby," he says.
In a Valley where meat eaters make up the
majority, everyone would agree that the animals have to go through a test before they are
slain. A well-run slaughterhouse would make that possible. But with Hyumat Tole’s
butchers not willing to give up their place, where will that slaughterhouse come up that
will make the momos safe and sweet?
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