A rather incredible story recently circulated on Lahore Twitter after a story was published in a local Urdu newspaper. It claimed a man was arrested with 185kg worth of dead frogs that were going to be sold to restaurants in Lahore.

This story is untrue. It also claimed that the dead frogs were going to be used in “burgers and shawarmas”.

But, part of the story is true: the police did temporarily detain two men for transporting frogs. Police stopped the two men, who were travelling in a rickshaw, with eight sacks. The sacks contained five maund or 185kg of frogs, some dead and some alive. The police only stopped the men because they thought the frogs were of a rare species.

But that’s where the story ends. They were not taking them to restaurants at all. The men were selling the frogs to a laboratory on Abkari Road which then supplied them to medical universities. Medical students dissect the frogs and practice suturing on them.

Having the frogs is not a crime and neither the police nor the Punjab Wildlife Department had any issue with the case. The men were released and were free to go but their frogs were released into a river.

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