While some people may have high blood pressure after the saga between the National Police and the Corruption Eradication Commission, the liver of a cow from a high-ranking National Police officer
was also in bad shape.
The cow was among three contributed by Chief Police Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri, Deputy Chief Police Gen. Comr. Makbul Padmanagara and General Supervision Inspectorate Gen. Comr. Jusuf Manggabarani to be slaughtered during for the Islamic Day of sacrifice on Friday.
There were a total of 24 cows and five goats slaughtered at the National Police headquarters.
Kurnia Suni Asih, head of the South Jakarta Husbandry, Fishery and Marine sub-agency, revealed the disease after examining the liver of the slaughtered cow during the celebration of the Islamic Day of Sacrifice on Friday.
"The third cow which was brought here had Fasciola hepatica or liver fluke," she said as quoted by kompas.com.
Edy Setiarto, head of the Jakarta Husbandry, Fishery and Marine Agency, said even if a cow's liver suffered from fasciolosis disease, its meat would not contaminated by the flatworms.
"The cow's meat is safe for human consumption. We just need to remove the liver from the cow's body," he told The Jakarta Post over the phone later in the afternoon.
He said the flatworms could be recognized easily from the flat shape, about two centimeters long.
"Unlike tapeworms in pigs that live in pigs' meat, the flatworms only live in the liver," he said.
Edy said he received a report that a number of cows slaughtered in North and South Jakarta suffered from the disease.
He admitted that several diseases, including flatworms, were not looked for very closely, through some inspections were conducted ahead of the celebration, as the agency only focused on dangerous diseases that could infect humans and contagious ones that could hurt the productivity of the animals.
"We examined whether the cows suffered from anthrax virus, foot and mouth disease or snoring disease," he said.
Snoring disease (Septicaemia epizoolicae or SE) is also known as Newcastle disease, in which the cow produces a sound similar to a snore.
The day to slaughter the cows at the headquarters, however, was unfortunately marred, just like the cow's liver.
As in some big mosques or other places that offer large numbers of meat packages from the sacrifices, thousands of poor people pushed one another to get the meat packages at police headquarters.
Detik.com reported that a cow about to be slaughtered tried to run away at Bhayangkara field.
A television cameraman tried to capture the moment but a police officer tried to stop him.
"From what institution are you?..Report the news well or I would shut your company," he said harshly, but apologized later for his actions.
The recent widely publicized dispute between the National Police and the KPK, along with the involvement of high-ranking senior police officers in alleged attempts to incriminate suspects have undermined police public relations.
The public mobilized support for the victims of the alleged incrimination via social networking sites such as Facebook as well as taking to the streets to ask the government to stop this and for action against the police said to be allegedly involved.
The much-awaited response from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono resulted in his advising that this be settled outside of the courts.
Perhaps the Day of Sacrifice may help to make up for all this.
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