Zubair Qureshi
The district administration of Islamabad and the Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB) on Thursday sprung to action after a social media user posted pictures of ‘roasted bats’ on her twitter handle and complained her Chinese neighbour’s family was cooking bats and eating them.
This can cause spread of novel coronavirus not only in the neighbourhood but the entire city, she further complained and urged the district administration, health authorities and police to take a quick action.
According to Timtim Qurantino, as the twitter handle described herself also mentioned the Deputy Commissioner Hamza Shafqaat and Prime Minister Imran Khan and further claimed the said house is located along the Margalla Road and the Chinese family living there was eating bats for quite some time.
However, all her ‘claims’ turned out to be fake and the bats’ picture were in fact pictures of the ‘fried fish’ and ‘roasted chicken’ but they were hanging from a wire in a way they looked like bats.
While replying to Timim Quarantino DC Hamza Shafqaat clarified a team of the district administration as well as the Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB) had visited the house and it turned out to be fish and chicken and no bat was being cooked or eaten by them.
This is a traditional way to preserve meat and many Chinese families do this by hanging the dry meat by the wire in the sun.
The complainant however persisted for some time and insisted it was actually bats’ meat and the family removed it before the arrival and raid of the district teams.
Manager Operations of the IWMB Sakhawat Naz when contacted confirmed they were hung from the wire and since it was ‘desi’ chicken a breed that is not very fleshy they looked like bats.
In parts of Balochistan, the KP and even in the southern Punjab families dry mutton and chicken, salt them and hang from the wire in the sun to preserve and eat them, said Sakhawat Naz.
