Khota Karachi cleared

Since I belong to Lahore, I remember a strange rumour that once went around the social media. People said some Lahore hotels were mixing donkey meat into their karahi dishes. Nobody ever proved it. No lab report backed it. No court case settled it, but rumours do not need proof. They just need gossip. And Karachi folks loved this one. They laughed at us, calling our karahi “khota karahi”. It stung a little, I admit. We are proud of our food in Lahore. Nobody likes being mocked over dinner.

Now, years later, a new story has landed. And I confess, it makes me smile.

The country has started exporting donkey meat to China. The first shipment, weighing 27 tonnes, left from Gwadar. It reached the Chinese market this week. A licensed Chinese company called Han Geng Trade handled the whole operation. They built a five million dollar processing plant in Gwadar’s free zone. This is not a small backyard business. This is organised trade with government approval.

Let me explain how this works, in simple words.

Earlier this year, in April, the federal cabinet committee gave legal approval for this export. The full cabinet confirmed it in May. Strict health and quarantine rules were set between Pakistan’s commerce ministry, the food security ministry, and China’s customs department. Nothing was left loose.

The donkeys themselves come from farms. Six farms are already running. Punjab has farms in Rahim Yar Khan and Sheikhupura. Sindh has farms in Keamari and Jamshoro. Eight more farms are being built right now. From these farms, donkeys travel to Gwadar. There, inside the free zone, the company runs its slaughterhouse.

Why only Gwadar, you might ask. I asked the same question.

The government does not allow such slaughterhouses in normal cities or residential areas. Officials fear it could raise doubts about Pakistan’s halal meat exports, especially those going to Gulf countries. So they kept the entire donkey processing chain locked inside Gwadar’s high-security zone. Customs officers watch it. Anti-narcotics force watches it. Security agencies watch it around the clock. Every container gets a government seal before it leaves. Nothing moves without that seal. Nothing reaches local markets. That is the whole point.

Here is the part that should ease Lahore’s old wound. This meat is not meant for our plates. It never touches our bazaars. It travels straight from the slaughterhouse to the ship, and then straight to China. So the next time someone in Karachi jokes about khota karahi, we can smile back. Our karahi was always beef or chicken. The donkeys are busy earning foreign exchange instead.

But the story is not all smooth sailing. Business experts warn of trouble ahead. Ehtisham ul Haq, a businessman who deals with Chinese companies, raised a real concern. He said Pakistan does not yet have proper donkey breeding farms. Without them, this export model cannot last. China’s market is huge. Our donkey population is not huge enough to match it. Over half of our donkeys are female, and their meat is usually not exported. If breeding does not scale up fast, we may run short. We might even struggle to find donkeys for basic cargo work someday.

There is also a logistics headache. Transporting donkeys from Punjab or interior Sindh to Gwadar is expensive and exhausting. It harms the animals too. Experts suggest building more slaughterhouses in desert regions like Bahawalpur, Cholistan, and Tharparkar, where donkey populations are naturally higher. But social and religious sensitivities make the government cautious about spreading this business too widely.

Still, for now, Lahore can breathe a little easier. Our karahi remains untouched, while somewhere in China, a very different dish is being served.