DADU: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader and former Sindh chief minister Liaquat Ali Jatoi on Sunday strongly criticised the provincial government for failing to undertake any relief and rescue operation in any part of the province, which was hit by a natural calamity. Thousands of people were marooned in the Kachho belt alone and had been waiting for relief and rescue for 11 days but neither any step was being taken to save their lives nor were proper arrangements being made to shift them to safe places, he said.

Mr Jatoi was speaking to the media in Johi after visiting Wahi Pandhi, Drig Bala, Haji Khan and other flooding-hit towns and villages in the Kachho area along with Sindh PTI vice president and former Dadu district nazim Karim Khan Jatoi on Sunday.

The former CM said that during his visit, he could not see any government functionaries or volunteers helping out marooned men, women and children trapped in their destroyed villages. He also refuted Dadu deputy commissioner’s claim that boats were employed to shift people to safe places.

The Pakistan Peoples Party-led Sindh government did have funds amounting to billions of rupees but it seemed not ready to spend even on saving lives of poor and needy people, he said.

Visits flooded areas of Dadu district

The federal government, as well as corporate sector earning billions from oil and gas exploration in the area, also appeared indifferent to the affected people’s woes in their hour of need, he lamented.

Liaquat Jatoi and Karim Jatoi pointed out that road communication between each two of several hundred villages of Kachho belt was cut off by torrential rains and hill torrents and Johi also remained disconnected from them for many days but rehabilitation work had not been started till date.

They noted that millions of rupees were got released in the name of water supply schemes every year but no such scheme was visible. All departments remained plagued with corruption over the tenures of PPP government, they added.

They noted that heirs of a youth, Ali Khoso, revealed that he drowned in flood water while struggling to save his child from drowning near Johi. The family alleged that despite his hue and cry, the assistant commissioner of Johi and mukhtiarkar did not move to arrange a boat to rescue them. PPP ministers and lawmakers from the district did not render any service to people over the last 15 years of the party’s rule over Sindh, they deplored.

Liaquat Jatoi pointed out that bridges were built in the Kachho belt and major development works carried out in some other areas including Wahi Pandhi, Haji Khan Road and Gorakh Hills during his tenure as federal minister. He said he had also established electricity grid station in the Kachho area.

He condemned that law and order in Mehar was worsening but instead of arresting offenders, police at the behest of PPP government had recently implicated around 300 PTI workers in fake cases.

Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2022