A full-fledged war is on against rats in Peshawar and some other parts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for several days. A rat-catcher who was hired by the Water and Sanitation Services Peshawar a few months back is leading the operation clean up. The rats rattle echoed not only in the district council, it reached the provincial assembly too.

All this started after reports appeared in March that a rat had bitten to death an eight-month-old baby, Uzair, in Hassan Garhi, a suburb of Peshawar. A two-year-old Aqsa and three-year-old Hifza were also reported to be victims of oversized mice.

There were many other reports that huge rats exist in urban, suburban and rural parts of the provincial capital. The issue was brought to the notice of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan during one of his visits to the city a few weeks back but he had avoided commenting on the issue.

The matter was not paid any heed to till the issue became so complex that Asim Khan, the district Nazim of Peshawar, had to announce they would pay Rs25 per rat to those who bring them to their collection centres.

The issue has become a source of amusement on the media after the announcement of the head money. There are a number of videos of rats in circulation on Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The announcement by the district nazim is being taken as fun. Many got a point to lash out at the PTI government.

Following the announcement of Rs25 as head money, the vice chairman of the Cantonment Board, Waris Afridi, announced Rs300 per rat, triggering another discussion that even the life of a rat is more precious in Cantonments than in cities and villages. The Nazims and Councillors’ Alliance in Mardan also announced Rs20 per rat.

"The concerned departments are paying no heed to the issue, resulting in increase of rats in urban union councils in Mardan," says Sajid Iqbal, President Nazims and Councillors’ Alliance.

Nobody has so far been given a single penny. A local paper even reported the police arrested passenger of a coach with 100 rats in a plastic bag that he was carrying from Punjab to Peshawar to claim Rs30,000 from the Cantonment Board.

Rats have been under discussion all over the country, for many weeks now. Federal Minister Parvez Rashid in one of his statements made fun of the PTI government campaign against rats, saying the federal government is making efforts to eliminate terrorists while the PTI government is going after rats.

Maula Bakhsh Chandio, advisor to the Sindh government, while lashing out at Imran Khan said he wants to become Mao Zedong by killing rats in KP.

Others taunted what to expect from the KP government if it cannot clean its cities of rats. An advisor to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, Mushtaq Ghani, later clarified that the announcement was made by the Peshawar district nazim, not the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government. So, even the district administration is not ready to own the decision announced by the district nazim. The deputy commissioner and the provincial government have not spoken much about the issue, leaving it only to the nazim to handle it after making an unpopular announcement.

The matter has already reached the Peshawar High Court where a citizen Dr Hussain Ahmad Haroon has filed a writ petition. The petitioner told the court that a child was recently killed while several others were wounded when bitten by rats in different areas of Peshawar. Dr Haroon has asked the court to direct the authorities to clean Peshawar of rats. A division bench of the Peshawar High Court comprising Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Roohul Amin has sought report from the provincial government through secretary health, director general health and others concerned.

The district government Peshawar launched a cleansing campaign in Kohati Bazaar on April 2. "Special teams have been constituted. They are provided with poison which they spray on bread and tomatoes which they place near garbage dumps, drains and other dirty places to kill rats," says an official of the Peshawar district administration. The teams claimed killing and dumping hundreds of rats during the first few days of the campaign. However, no one has been paid a reward as announced by the district nazim. The district nazim did not reply to the questions sent by this scribe through SMS. His spokesman too did not reply.

The deputy commissioner and his office have already made it clear that they have nothing to do with the campaign, and the announcement of reward money was fixed by the nazim.

People have started campaign on their own to clean their areas of rats. "Report of a baby dying from rat-bite has scared everyone. I am worried for my children. I don’t let them walk or sit on floor. I placed poison all over the house but these rats are still there," said Zahida Ilyas, a housewife from the Peshawar suburbs. She said everyone in her family is concerned after nothing concrete has been done either by the district or the provincial government to clean the city of mice.

There are concerns that the mass killing of rats in Peshawar and other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa may affect the ecosystem. "Though rats and some other rodents are being targeted, they have a crucial trophic level in the food web of any given ecosystem. Eliminating them in an area may have an impact on the population size of both upper and lower trophic levels," opined biologist Professor Dr Jahan Bakht.

Others believe the killing of a few thousand rats is not going to leave an impact on the ecosystem. "The ecosystem is already disturbed as their population is higher than needed. We need a balance of some animals and insects," says Asim Kakakhel, a researcher.

Peshawarites believe elimination of rats is not as difficult as the district administration projects. They believe that cleaning dumps and carrying out a campaign in the city could bring an end to the killer rats. "If they can’t handle this petty issue well, how the will the district government and its machinery deal with bigger and more sensitive issues in the coming years in the provincial metropolis and other districts?" questioned Zulfiqar Khan, a Peshawarite.