Newsline Report
Hundreds of sheep in Srinagar’s Mulnar area are on the verge of starvation as forest officials have erected barbed wire fence to bar the herders from entering the nearby grazing areas.
Sheep farmers in Mulnar area said the officials of the forest department don’t allow sheep to graze in the area, where they have been taken for grazing for ages.
The negative approach of forest officials towards sheep grazing hits at the core of the government’s efforts to promote sheep farming as a robust entrepreneurship in the region.
The farmers complained that the move of the forest officials threatens to starve hundreds of sheep thus choking the local economy.
“The livelihood of so many families is dependent on sheep farming and yet these officials do not take the ground realities into consideration,” a sheep farmer in Mulnar said.
Another farmer said the sheep are the most docile of all the animals and will not harm any afforestation attempt of the department.
“If the forest officials continue to prevent our sheep from grazing in Mulnar, then they will be responsible for the starvation and deaths of hundreds of them,” a farmer said.
Mulnar and its nearby areas of New Theed are located on the outskirts of Srinagar.
