Construction firm staffers booked for cutting 70 trees

Karachi

The Ferozabad police on Saturday booked the employees of a construction company for cutting down around 70 trees along the Shaheed-e-Millat Road after an inquiry launched by Commissioner Karachi Syed Asif Hyder Shah found them responsible.

Karachi is already severely stressed due to environmental changes spurred by the lack of greenery. Last year, more than 2,000 people in the city perished owing to a deadly heatwave that environmentalists attributed to the lack of adequate green spaces in the city, along with the effects of climate change.

According to the Sindh Local Government Act 2013, cutting of trees is a punishable offence and anybody found chopping down a tree can be imprisoned and fined simultaneously. Cutting trees is also punishable under the Pakistan Penal Code.

Ferozabad SHO Sohail Khan confirmed that an FIR had been registered an FIR against officials and employees of a construction firm, Gohar Group of Companies, for the cutting down of 70 trees.

However, he said, so far no arrest had been made by the police. The FIR was lodged on Friday on the complaint of Nadeem Ahmed, deputy director of parks in the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation.

On the other hand, the spokesman for the commissioner’s office said that an inquiry had been conducted by deputy commissioner East on directives of Commissioner Syed Asif Hyder Shah, due to which it was learnt that the construction firm did not seek any permission for chopping down such a large number of trees and plants. He said the KMC’s parks department was subsequently asked to lodge an FIR against the culprits.

The spokesman for the commissioner’s office said the trees had been cut down on the night between April 3 and April 4, so locals could not report this wrongdoing. However, he said, a few citizens did take this act seriously and approached the authorities against chopping of the trees by the construction firm.

Ironically, the Sindh Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), the provincial environmental watchdog, is neither aware nor concerned about the incident and no notice of chopping down of so many fully-grown trees has been taken by the agency.