KARACHI: A police report has blamed government officials for the humanitarian crisis in Thar area of southern Sindh province.
It says delays in submission of files and summaries coupled with frequent transfers of officials and failure of the district administration and the health department to take notice of the growing child mortalities led to the crisis.
The report prepared by DIG Hyderabad Range Dr Sanaullah Abbasi, SSP Badin and member of the inquiry committee Sarfraz Nawaz and ASP Qazi Ahmed area and member Asif Amin Awan will be submitted to the Karachi Registry of the Supreme Court which had taken notice of the death of children in Thar because of malnutrition.
The report was prepared on the directives of the apex court and was provided by Faisal Siddiqi, a Karachi-based lawyer.
The police report says the request for declaring Thar as a calamity-hit area was delayed at the district level for more than two months.
“The request was forwarded by the Tharparkar deputy commissioner (DC) to Mirpurkhas commissioner.
Two of the three mukhtiarkars submitted their reports to the DC by the end of September last year and the third on November 28, after a delay of almost two months.
But the DC office did not ask him to submit a report if there was any emergency,” the police report says.
There was a further delay at the Sindh secretariat level. The secretariat took three months to act on the summary as the notification declaring Thar as a calamity-hit area was issued on February 28 this year.
The government, according to the report, usually declares a state of drought in Thar by September or October when there is less than normal rainfall.
INTERNEWS
