In Nov 2022, the Additional Sessions Judge I in Mithi, Tharparkar in the Sindh province convicted two men with a one-year jail term and imposed a fine of Rs 2.2 million for attempted smuggling of four fawns.

During a raid on November 3, the Sindh Wildlife Department (SWD) found four fawns from two men. They were arrested and sent to a local police station and booked under charges of smuggling wild animals.

“The fawns were caught in the wild and were being transported to Karachi,” SWD’s Deputy Director for Mirpurkhas region Mir Aijaz Talpur said. The animals were just a few days old.Talpur said that his team tried to save the lives of fawns, but “unfortunately they did not survive.” The fawns were caught most probably from Daheli, a taluka of Tharparkar district. “Not a single man has ever received such a sentence before,” Talpur said. “It is the first time in Pakistan that wildlife smugglers have been sentenced and heavily fined,” he added.

The SWD’s Provincial Conservator Javed Ahmed Mahar said: “It is all because of the new law passed recently by the Sindh Assembly.” In July 2020, the Sindh Wildlife Protection, Preservation, Conservation and Management Act 2020 was passed, which aims to enhance protection of wildlife in the province. It replaced a weaker law, hardly providing any protection to wild animals, for the first time since 1972. “The new law is strict for wildlife smugglers,” Mahar said. “It is the first time that smugglers and whoever harms wildlife is being punished.”

Five offenders paid SWD Rs2.3 million for illegally hunting seven Chinkara deer in the same district. The officials said that as per the law hunting deer is banned across Sindh. The offenders were caught red-handed by villagers in Ranglio in July. During the trial at a court in Mithi, the offenders plead guilty to the crime and submitted to pay the compounding amount under Section 27 of the new law.