Lets Save Mini Pakistan

By Aeyaz Hassan

Dear all, let’s stand above ethnic, cast, linguistic, provincial, class, and religion belonging. To analyze some thing and to find out reality one must keep aside any type of bias.

There can not be a single Pakistani who will disagree with the reality that karachi is financial capital and economical and industrial hub of Pakistan and is truly called MINI PAKISTAN.

Taliban are not a fiction and there atrocities and brutality on the name of religion is not a horror story. Taliban have there routes in karachi as there are almost 2000 unregistered and registered Madarsa in karachi of which many are having links with those regions where taliban are right now in power and are killing innocent people,burning schools and fighting with our own Army to take over.

Karachites have witnessed that after almost a decade of violence,blood shed worst law and order situation there city was in relative calm and is progressing in all manners from last eight years.

Those who were on road on 27th of december 2007, a black day in history of Pakistan when we have lost a great leader, exactly know that who were the people who have killed, burned, looted, harassed, kidnapped women, raped and taken away cash from banks and ATM’s before torching them. Those were the people who have nothing to do with PPP but at the time of grief,pain and sorrow they were working on there own agenda under the cover of so called public reaction.

People of karachi will never forget that those people and those were the same who are really supporting Taliban in karachi.Unfortunately a religious political party which was against the formation of Pakistan is also the mastermind behind Talibanization of Karachi.

People of Karachi must stand together hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder to save MINI PAKISTAN from Talibanizaation because they are not only threat to Pakistan but also defacing Islam.

Karachi is not prepared for calamities or war

At a time when Pakistan has reached the brink of war with India, both civilian and military-led municipal organisations are neither prepared to carry out rescue operations nor they have been put on any kind of alert by the authorities.

The first line of civil defence i.e. provincial Civil Defence Organization is lying functionless and ineffective for the past many decades owing to the negligence of authorities concerned. It is not performing peacetime activities either, such as training volunteers and creating awareness to cope with any natural or manmade disasters.

A visit to the provincial Civil Defence Organization’s headquarters in Saddar Town and interviews with its officials revealed that the organization is virtually dead now and could not even play a cosmetic role in case of air strikes or natural disasters such as earthquakes or tsunamis.

During the interviews with civil defence officials, it was revealed that their morale was very low and they themselves were not sure of doing anything effective for the citizens in case of war or any catastrophe in the economic hub of Pakistan.

“The civil defence now only exists on paper because it does not have the required equipment and funds or trained manpower or the volunteers to perform any task. It can’t even let the sirens wail in case of air strikes,” a senior civil defence official said seeking anonymity.

He claimed that the volunteers registered with them were now doing various jobs to earn their livelihood, as there was no budget available to engage them with the organization while they could not be made available immediately if required as majority of them were not in contact for years now.

On the other hand, City District Government Karachi (CDGK) Fire Brigade Department, which is the most equipped and relatively active civilian rescue service in Karachi, is also nowhere near preparedness for any wartime situation because it has neither been asked to prepare for any disaster nor have its officials realized any such threat.

Background interviews with CDGK fire brigade officials revealed that they had not been put on any alert by the authorities while they themselves did not fear any situation that could go out of their control in the city.

“The city fire brigade is busy in its day to day preparedness but we have not been put on any alert from any quarters. However, in case of war, the fire brigade becomes a part of armed forces of Pakistan and used accordingly,” Jahangir Khan, a fire consultant hired by CDGK for revamping its fire brigade department, told The News.

City Chief Fire Officer Ehteshamuddin denied receiving any written or verbal orders either from CDGK or provincial government to be ready for any wartime situation. He, however, claimed that they were busy in extinguishing fires and rescuing people daily so they didn’t need any specific orders.

“As far as coordination with other organisations is concerned, when there is an incident in the city which goes out of our control, we seek help from Karachi Port Trust (KPT) and even Navy so there is no issue of lack of coordination between CDGK Fire Brigade Department and other authorities in the city,” he informed.

As far as other military-led land controlling authorities in the city are concerned, none of these organizations - despite having sensitive installations in their jurisdictions - have the ability to mitigate or manage large-scale disasters, including multiple air strikes.

One such organization is KPT which is vulnerable to enemy air strikes but its fire-fighting and search and rescue capabilities are negligible as compared to its size and importance.

Although KPT has a fire-fighting department but it has to often take support from the CDGK fire brigade to extinguish category two or three fires, like the one that engulfed Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) building near Native Jetty bridge last year.

The same is the situation with the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) and a number of military cantonments in the city, which earn millions of rupees in the garb of taxes from citizens living in their civilian areas but even light rains and small fire incidents render them unable to rescue people timely and effectively.

Experts believe that none of the municipal service departments of both the civilian and military setups are realizing the threat of Indian air strikes or even any natural disaster of mass scale and were nowhere near to help and rescue citizens in any untoward situation.

They, however, termed the CDGK the only organisation which had the resources while it was also improving its existing rescue setup by building an Urban Search and Rescue Team of international standards with the help of National Disaster Management Authority in addition to a search, rescue and fire fighting academy.

Mothers return to Edhi for Children

Three mothers, who handed over their eight children to Edhi on Tuesday, came back to take their children home on Wednesday. Unable to face the onslaught of growing poverty, three families of the city’s lower-middle class locality Korangi handed over their eight children to Abdus Sattar Edhi on Tuesday in the hope that their children may get food and schooling.
Three mothers came to Bilquees Edhi and started crying after seeing their children there. Speaking to media, they said that abject poverty forced them to hand over their children to Edhi. The children include Omar, Usman, Nimra, Adnan, Faiza, Rehima, Rimsha and Warda, aged between 8 and 10 years.

Women abandon 8 kids due to poverty

Three women left their eight beloved children to Edhi Home in its Metadhar office in Lyari due to extreme poverty as they could not feed them having no source of income, said the head of Edhi Foundation, Abdul Sattar Edhi, here on Tuesday.While talking to Media, Edhi said that three women left their children at his head office because they cannot provide food to them.He refused to disclose the names of the mothers of eight children whom they left at Edhi home,adding, that the women told him that they were living in extreme poverty and did not have any source of income.

These eight children's three fathers are jobless and not well.'The children belong to very poor families and their fathers are jobless while the women have only registered the names of their husband and said that they are residents of Korangi area and are relatives', Edhi said.The women who left their children are residents of Korangi area as they live in rented houses and cannot afford to pay their rents, as their husbands are also jobless and despite hard efforts fail to get any job.He said that one woman who was Punjabi speaking mentioned her husband's name as Khan Bahadur who is a Pakhtoon. She left her one daughter named Warda aged 5 while another woman registered her husband's name as Waseem Khan who is also a Punjabi speaking and has left three children including, Irfan 8, Usman 5 and Nimra 4, while the third woman was Urdu speaking and she is wife of Muhammad Sabir and she has left four children Rahima, 7, Faiza 12, Adnan 10 and Ramsha 9.When she was leaving her fifth child who was boy named Rehman 6 started crying when his mother was leaving him which compelled her to take back her son home.

Meanwhile, Rizwana Amber office-bearer of Edhi Home told that the said women were residents of Korangi and also were relatives.Two Punjabi speaking women were sisters and the husband of Urdu speaking woman was cousin of one women's husband.
window.

Celebrating Dhoniʼs birthday in Karachi

By Ehsan Qureshi
Indiaʼs skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni was not in the happiest of moods after his team had gone down in the final of the Asia Cup 2008 at the National Stadium, Karachi, but he still managed to sport a smile when I approached him to make a small presentation at the balcony of the main pavilion building.

The final of the Asia Cup between India and Sri Lanka, like all the preceding matches of the tournament, was a day-nighter. The game had started on the afternoon of July 6 but the date had changed by the time the players and the covering media packed their bags.

I can never dare to forget the date of July 7 because my beloved wife, Samrah, had arrived in this world on this particular day. I also knew that Dhoni was born on this day. So I availed the opportunity.

Soon after wishing Samrah over telephone as soon as the clock struck 12, I rushed towards Dhoni who had a session with the media in his usual flamboyant manner. He was as cool, calm and composed as ever while responding to some tricky questions in the media briefing.

Dhoni accepted my greetings on his birthday. May be he was touch surprised to be wished so early for the day had just begun. He was very happy to know that my wife was celebrating her birthday the same day. He extended greetings to her right away.

I presented a copy of my book on World Cup 2003 to the Indian captain who was quick to congratulate me on my effort. He glanced through the pages of the book and described it a worthy publication.

The World Cup 2003 was one tournament in which the Indians had performed exceptionally well, having reached the final where they were undone by Australia, the reigning champions.

Talking about Dhoni, he has really turned the face of Indian cricket. He leads a bunch of enterprising young cricketers who are right behind their captain. Even the senior players in the side are inspired by the proactive methods of Dhoni.

The Indians delighted the crowds in Pakistan with their dazzling batting performance in the Asia Cup. Dhoni led his team by example, changing gears as and when desired. The Indians, however, faltered at the last hurdle and failed to recapture the Asian crown despite looking the most formidable of all participating teams. They were overwhelmed by Sri Lanka in the final.

As Dhoni acknowledged in the post-match media briefing, the exploits of the veteran opener Sanath Jayasuriya and the mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis caught his team on the wrong foot.

Jayasuriya, as he had done often in the past, fought a lone battle against the charged up Indian bowlers and his breathtaking stroke-play kept Sri Lanka in the game despite the loss of wickets at regular intervals from the other end.

Virender Sehwag devastated the Sri Lankan medium-pacers but the complexion of the game changed with the introduction of Mendis who demolished the famed batting line-up with a magical spell of spin bowling.