Commission orders action against police officers ignoring water theft complaints

The judicial commission, which has been looking into the Sindh government’s failure to provide clean drinking water, better sanitation and a healthy environment to the people of the province, directed the provincial police chief to take action against station house officers and senior superintendents of police who were not entertaining complaints of the irrigation department about water theft through tampering with modules.

The commission headed by Justice (retd) Amir Hani Muslim took notice of the police inaction over complaints of water theft and tampering with modules in different districts of the province. It observed that the assistant executive engineer sent a letter to the SHO of Garo Police Station on May 31 with regard to water theft, but no FIR had been registered by the police officer.

Chairman Task Force Jamal Mustafa Syed, who is also irrigation secretary, submitted that there were more than 500 letters which were addressed to the police by various officials of the irrigation department requesting them to take action against the stealing of irrigation water or tampering with modules, but the police were not cooperating as per the law.

He further submitted that even if FIRs were registered on the basis of the letters by SHOs, no arrest was made. The commission directed Inspector General of Police AD Khowaja to take up the issue with all the SSPs of the districts with clear directions that in future if SHOs failed to register FIRs, action would be taken against the SSP concerned, and if need be the matter would be referred to the Supreme Court for initiating proceedings against those SSPs.

It directed the IGP to issue a notification directing all SSPs to issue appropriate instructions to the SHOs for immediately lodging FIRs on the complaints issued by various officials of the irrigation department for taking action against the culprits.

Regarding the dumping of garbage in Karachi’s District Central, the chairman of the district municipal corporation, Rehan Hashmi, stated that sanitary inspectors had issued notices to several persons on charges of dumping garbage in streets and public places. He said a sessions judge of the district had been requested to depute police personnel for taking action.

The commission directed the Karachi mayor and others to prepare a line of action against persons who were dumping garbage at public places. It directed him to ensure the cleaning of storm water drains in the jurisdiction of the Karachi Municipal Corporation.

The commission also inquired the director general of the Sindh Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) to submit details with regard to action against manufacturers of plastic bags. The Sepa director submitted that notices had been issued to the plastic bag manufactures for implementing the environmental laws.

The commission directed the secretary for environment and the Sepa chief to appear along with a complete record of action against the plastic bag manufacturers for violating the environmental laws.