Sindh govt spokesman: ‘People disobey lockdown orders to unwittingly pass Covid-19 infection’

KARACHI: Sindh Law and Environment Adviser Barrister Murtaza Wahab has said around 182 children of age less than 10 years and 900 persons having age of over 60 have been suffering from coronavirus in the province. He said it was very much possible that they could have caught infection from their own family members who ventured outside their homes in total disregard of the lockdown orders of the government.

In a video message released on Sunday, Wahab, who also acts as the spokesman for the Sindh government, claimed that the people were disobeying the lockdown orders of the government and as a result they had been untraceably and unwittingly passing on the infection to elder and minor members of their families. He said that the provincial government had been repeatedly asking the people to obey the lockdown orders of the government as doing so was necessary to safeguard their elder and younger generations.

He said that varying opinions and points of view existed among the concerned people about the government’s decision of lockdown as according to some, a smart lockdown had to be imposed in the country while for others lockdown altogether is a wrong strategy to tackle the COVID-19 emergency. As such, all such anti-lockdown thinking is wrong, keeping in view the prevailing facts.

“We have to protect our innocent children, elder members of the family, and the entire society from this deadly epidemic as this could only be possible when we take the lockdown orders seriously not just to observe them personally but also to make others to follow them,” he said.

He said that people should also observe social distancing in their immediate surroundings and residential areas to keep the infection away from their families and loved ones.

Meanwhile, the Sindh government on Sunday formally approached the Federal Investigation Agency to initiate action against elements involved in maligning its top authorities on social media by creating the impression that businessmen and industrialists in Karachi were being asked to pay bribe to get their businesses reopened during the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown.

Barrister Murtaza Wahab in this regard has sent a letter to the FIA seeking action against the elements responsible for disseminating misleading audio clips on social media as a tool of propaganda against the top authorities of the Sindh government.

According to Barrister Wahab, the audio clips in question contained purported statements of industrialists and businessmen of Karachi alleging that they were being asked to pay money to the provincial authorities as a pre-condition to get permission to reopen their businesses during the COVID-19 lockdown in the province. He said that the relevant leaders of the traders later on came on record to deny making such statements against the provincial government authorities.

He said that a leader of opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf later also posted the same accusations through his twitter account without any verification just to malign the Sindh government’s authorities.

The letter sent to the FIA in this regard demands strict action against elements behind such propaganda while stating that certain quarters had been active to provoke the concerned traders in the city to disobey the lockdown orders of the government in total disregard of the efforts being made by the provincial authorities to fight the COVID-19 epidemic.