By Zahiruddin
CHITRAL: The residents of Baroghil have started to bring their yaks in the market of Chitral city to purchase their commodities of daily use as their valley will remain cut off from the rest of the district during the winter season where it extends to five months.
Situated at a height of 12500 feet above the sea level in the northernmost corner of Chitral bordering the Wakhan corridor of Afghanistan, the area is not suitable to agriculture due to harsh weather conditions and the only source of sustenance is yak keeping.
The village nazim of Baroghil Amin Jan Tajik told Chitral Times that the yak is the only animal which easily sustains the unkind weather of the area which remains shrouded in snow for five months and they remained least affected by the freezing temperature of the area.
He said that the people sold their yaks every year before the advent of the winter season which is the sole source of income for most of the households and earned hard cash to fulfill their needs.
He said that shops have been opened in the valley over the last couple of years where most of the commodities of daily consumption are available while in the past, they stored the ration in their homes for the whole season.
Mr. Tajik said that the residents of the valley herded their yaks both to Chitral and Ashkoman area of Gilgit-Baltistan to sell them in the market while the traders also thronged there in the season to purchase them but the residents preferred to take their animals to the market by themselves excluding the middleman and thereby earn more.
He said that this year, more numbers of people have preferred to come to Chitral than the Gilgit-Baltistan as the pass between Baroghil and Gilgit has received snow before the normal time.
Meanwhile, the meat of yak is in galore in the Chitral market due to the arrival of the animals from Baroghil valley on daily basis in large number which sold in the same rate of beef which is Rs. 380 a kilogram.
Juma Khan, a butcher in Chew bazaar, said that he slaughters 10 to 15 yaks a day to meet its growing demand while supply of the animals from Baroghil is also in progress which will continue for the next two weeks.
He said that yak meat becomes available in the market only in the days short before the advent of winter season as the yaks are not sold by the residents of Baroghil and Laspur throughout the year.
He said that the yak meat is very fervently consumed by the people as it bears the characteristics of mutton and that due to the free grazing of the animal in the pasture throughout the year, its flesh is considered to be in purest form.
Bashir Hussain Azad, one of the customers in the butcher’s shop told that yak meat was his cherished food and he stores a large quantity of it in his refrigerator and consumes it during the two months of the winter season.
He said that as the yak is not kept in a corral as the other domesticated pet animals but they are left to graze in the wild even during the snowfall season, so its flesh is as palatable and tasty as that of wild animals which are hunted.
“Although it is more valuable than the mutton but its price has been kept at par with beef and this is perhaps due to the large size of the body of yak and thus the consumers are at advantage in Chitral”, he said while loading a large sack of meat in his jeep.
Mr. Azad claimed that the flesh of yak has a composition of cholesterol lower than that of mutton and beef which is one of the reasons of it being liked by the people in large.
yaks being herded through the Shahi Bazar Chitral to slaughter house
