A Night of Deaths

Qudsia Kadri

 

As I pick up my pen to put down my thoughts and I am sure of many other residents of this city, I wonder why I am bothered to write at all about the total lack of everything in Karachi. So many of us in the print media have written and talked about the failure of the Sindh Provincial Government, the City Government, the KESC, the KWSB, the Builders and Developers, the Contractors, the KDA, the Traffic Police, the DHA, the Clifton Cantonment Boards - and we could go on forever. But has any constructive analysis been of any use, did any of the above departments bother to hear the pleas, the anguish, the anxiety the desperation of the people of Karachi.
The answer is an obvious and blatant "No" so why bother, let people get electrocuted, let the masses suffer for unbearable number of hours, many times the twenty-four hour time cycle is of no consequence and one feels that all the learned and "Professional" in KESC never studied counting in School. Let the traffic control be left to God's will, let the city and its people suffer, mourn and silently protest. And as for the Media "they are always negative, they love to criticize and put down the Government, they are liars".
With such an attitude problem, having the administrators of this city believe that all is well and every department is functioning in a highly competent manner. What shall we call this attitude - ignorance, stupidity or sheer callousness, a totally unfeeling and un-sympathetic attitude, and in common terminology it is apathy to a degree of disgraceful and shameless arrogance.
Last Night's rain not only brought untold miseries to the people, the commuters who after being stuck in traffic which could not move for up-to six or seven hours in areas such as I.I Chundrigar Road and Shahrah-e-Faisal, but many innocent precious lives were lost due to electrocution in different parts of the city. And one such case which was brought to our knowledge was the father Mr Muslim and the son Mr Khurram who were returning home from work and lived on Khayaban-e-Hilal near 12th Street. Tragedy struck, when apparently they reached 4th street on Hilal and because of the double road being totally inundated with rain, gutter and sewerage water, Khurram stepped out perhaps because the car stopped, and the dangerous, weak, and not repaired broken electric wires from the near-by pole were lying submerged in water and waiting to strike and killed instantly the thirty-five years old Khurram. When his father ran out of the car to save his son, he too was electrocuted. But that was not the end of this horrific tragedy, a passer-by who tried to save them also got pulled into the valley of death. We as Muslims believe that life and death are pre-destined, but this was not how it should have happened, where three innocent lives were unaware of the danger lurking beneath the water which was standing so high after only receiving two hours of rainfall, because the sewerage and gutter lines in this area are blocked and choked due to the incessant digging and so called "development works" taking place in every lane and alley, by different departments of the city, who are not in co-ordination with each other and keep digging and re-opening the roads for laying of pipes and each time they dig open some water or sewerage line is broken and disturbed.
We feel that a law punishable with strict penalties be imposed on these joy-ride excavators who have cropped up all over the city. Many other tragic deaths were reported from different parts of Karachi and it was only in yesterday's issue of Financial Post (The Caption being Floating City) where we sitting in darkness could see broken wires all along Khayaban-e-Ittehad and several calls made to mobile phones of high ranking officials yielded a response of sorts at about 12 am in the morning. We had written that we could see people getting injured and deaths accuring on this road leading to different streets of DHA .
We would like to draw the attention of our illustrious City Nazim and his team that several gutter and manholes lie open on almost all streets of Saba Avenue Ph VI and even on a day when the city has experienced no rainfall these open holes are death threats to commuters and pedestrians.
During the last rainfall three weeks ago a van carrying mineral water bottles got one of its tyre's stuck in the manhole and needed a crane to lift out the van.
Another sight to behold is the Pakistan tourism's Institute building in Block 4 Clifton and massive land and garden which interestingly to date is a favourite venue for weddings, and functions and we are left wondering as to what kind of tourism are we developing. This building has boundary walls and one of these walls has a gapping hole made by the over zealous staff to throw out water accumulated since the past month or so to flow into the road in front of the houses across this building causing a flooding. Is there any department the residents of this area can approach - no as they say Clifton Cantonment Board is the most "incompetent unhelpful and dead organization" and they keep passing the blame onto City Government and telling the disgusted people of this area that block 4 Clifton comes under the City Government.
For goodness sake, we don't care anymore which area "belongs" to which department. We don't care whether it is the City Government, DHA or the various Cantonment Boards. We want relief, at least our basic utilities to be provided to us. We the tax-paying working class people pay our water, sewerage, fire, electric, tanker, property and a number of other taxes on time. We don't want to know your politics, your internal fighting, your grudges, your complaints against each other. You were elected to this City by us, the people, so please before it is too late to even cry over "split" milk, too late to pick up broken pieces, get your act together and give your services to us - the residents of this city. If the administrators have time to put up banners to welcome Chaudary Shujaat and Mushahid Hussain if they have manpower to clear up pools of water from VIP roads such as the streets in front of the Governor house, then we too have the right to ask for the needs of the people of Karachi to be met and looked after.
My Countrymen, seek out darkness
And flee the light, awaiting the
Coming of Water from the rock,
And your nation's misery is your
Crime…. I do not forgive you
Yours sins, for you know what you
Are doing.
(Khalil Gibran)