Despite the passage of six days, the royal family of Qatar has not yet produced the legal documentation required for the release of their hunting falcons detained by the Pakistani customs authorities. Pakistan Customs officials had withheld around 98 falcons being brought from Qatar by a member of its royal family without proper documentation. As per laws, customs authorities had given three days to the Arab dignitaries to produce legal documents for bringing a large number of hunting falcons to the country. Sources in customs, however, told Pakistan Today that authorities have already handed over 24 falcons to the “Sheikhs” saying that they had permission for only those falcons. “And on Wednesday night, the authorities handed another 16 falcons to representatives of the Qatri royal family after getting a heavy bribe.”
The Pakistan Customs officials asked the SWD to keep the birds in ‘Safe Custody’, meaning to keep them until the case is decided. However, the wildlife department refused to take the falcons.
“We sent a letter to the SWD to keep the falcons but they refused. The birds are in our custody until the owners come forward with the documents,” Pakistan Customs inspector Iftekhar Hussain told Pakistan Today. SWD’s provincial conservator, Saeed Baloch, said that the department had refused to take the hunting falcons as it does not have any facility to keep the birds. According to the law, customs has to handover the confiscated birds to the Sindh Wildlife Department (SWD) after three days. Within the next three days, the SWD has to resolve the case by either returning the birds to their owners if they bring the required documents or released the birds in the wild. However, it appears that the customs authorities are deliberately delaying the case.
The falcons were being brought in at the start of the winter season, a time when bird migrations into southern Pakistan are at a peak.
Every year at the onset of winter season, hundreds of the Arab dignitaries from Middle Eastern countries, including United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, arrive in Pakistan with falcons trained for hunting Houbara bustard – a highly-prized bird among the Arabs because its meat is valued as an aphrodisiac, but endangered and internationally protected.
Due to payments of huge amounts for these hunting birds by Arab dignitaries, locals in some parts of Sindh and Punjab are involved in excessive poaching of falcons, due to which the population of falcons, especially the saker and peregrine species, are on a decline in the country.
