Sindh Governor Imran Ismail has said the promotion of toy guns among the children of Lyari on the occasion of Eidul Fitr seems to him part of a new conspiracy against the hard-won peace in the area.
“But we will make sure that the children of Lyari are motivated towards sporting activities,” he said as he paid a visit to the area on Saturday along with legislators of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
During the visit, the governor went to the Azad Boxing Club to distribute boxing gloves, footballs, cricketing kits and other sports articles among children of Lyari.
Ismail said children were the future of the nation and they should be motivated to pursue healthy activities.
He added that much hard work had been done to restore the peace in Lyari and he could not see the children of the area once more drifted towards unhealthy activities.
“We want to see books and sporting articles in the hands of these children, instead of toy guns,” he said, adding that the youth of Lyari were very talented and they only needed to sharpen their aptitude.
He said all possible efforts would be made to ensure that the area once again provided national-level players of boxing and football.
Ismail vowed that the prime minister’s Kamyab Jawan programme would be utilised for financial assistance of the area’s youth so to motivate them to do healthy activities and efforts would be made for the revival of football, boxing, cycling and other conventional sports in Lyari. “I will always be present whenever and wherever my support is required for the purpose,” he said.
He added that the elimination of the ‘gun culture’ in the area had been a challenging task as the locality had witnessed much bloodshed in the past. “No chance will be given for resurgence of violence in the area as the law-enforcement agencies rendered innumerable sacrifices against the gun culture,” the governor asserted.
He said the gang warfare and Kalashnikov culture had been eliminated from Lyari with the cooperation of the people of the area. “The toy pistols of today could become the real guns of tomorrow and the promotion of this habit among the area children seems part of a pre-meditated planning.”
The governor said long before the advent of the gun culture, Lyari had been known as the hub of sporting activities but later on narcotics and arms were introduced in the area under a conspiracy.
Several notable footballers had been residents of Lyari who played for renowned sporting clubs and the national team, Ismail remarked.
He said the Anti-Narcotics Force and Narcotics Control Division of the federal government had been playing an active role to end the scourge of drugs in Lyari and other such troubled parts of the country.
To a question of media persons present on the occasion, the governor said the federal government had been taking steps to get rid of the locusts that could destroy crops. He said efforts were under way to ensure that the unidentified bodies pertaining to the recent air crash tragedy in Karachi could be handed over to the bereaved families as soon as possible.