Form body to stop steroid use in cattle: HC

A cow at a cattle farm at Mohammadpur in the capital where livestock go through a fattening regime ahead of Eid. Some farms claim that they fatten cows in an ‘natural’ way but most farms overdose cattle with vitamins and steroids available in the market. Photo: Rashed Shumon

The High Court today directed the government to form a body of experts, which will make recommendations to stop excessive use of steroids and hormones to fatten up the sacrificial animals.
The government will have to form a seven-member committee in eight weeks.
The experts will have to submit their recommendations and guidelines before the HC in eight weeks since its formation.
The orders by the HC bench of Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif and Justice Mohammad Ullah came after Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh, a rights organisation, filed a petition seeking HC directives on the use of excessive steroids on sacrificial animals ahead of Eid-ul-Azha.
Secretaries of home, commerce, health and food ministries have been made respondents to the rule have been asked to include in the committee food expert, doctor, veterinary doctor, nutritionist, health expert and two representatives of the ministries concerned.
While passing the order, the HC sought explanation as to why the government’s inaction to stop the use of harmful chemicals to flatten up animals would not be declared illegal.
Secretaries to the ministries of home, commerce, food, health, and livestock and fisheries, director generals of Rab, livestock service and health services, and the commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police were asked to respond to this rule by six weeks.
Talking to The Daily Star, counsel of the petitioner Manzill Murshid said the government had already deployed medical teams at cattle markets to examine the presence of steroids in the bodies of cattle, buffalos and goats.