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Thursday March 28, 2024

PTI criticises Sindh govt for delay in plane crash victims’ identification

By Our Correspondent
May 30, 2020

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) parliamentary party leader in the Sindh Assembly, Haleem Adil Sheikh, said on Friday that after the Pakistan International Airline plane crash of May 22, only one task, i.e. to identify the victims’ bodies, was given to the Sindh government, but, unfortunately, it could not do it properly.

“Relatives of plane crash victims are still waiting for the bodies of their loved ones. The Sindh government has not yet completed the identification process.” Sheikh said that the federal government had done all the work. “Compensation of Rs1 million has been given to the relatives of the plane crash victims and Rs5 million of insurance will be given soon.”

He asked the chief minister to speed up the work because the families of the victims were now worried. “Authorities have been stressing the victims’ families out by sending them from one place to another,” Sheikh said.

While criticising the provincial government for not setting up a cold-storage facility for dead bodies in the past twelve years of its rule, he said that charity organisations had been offering the facility to the people.

He said Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah considered himself an expert while taking decisions related to the coronavirus pandemic, but he always made wrong decisions. “Instead of taking steps to contain the coronavirus spread, he has been making people afraid,” said Sheikh, who is also the central vice president of the PTI.

Mocking Education Minister Saeed Ghani as still a student, he said he had been giving long speeches to the minister for aviation. “Instead of criticising others, he should pay attention to educational institutions under his ministry in Sindh, especially in Dadu where buffalo herds were seen inside schools.”

Separately, PTI’s Central Deputy General Secretary Ashraf Qureshi during a press conference at the Karachi Press Club said the coronavirus cases had been increasing rapidly in the province; therefore, the chief minister should immediately resign over his poor performance to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Qureshi said that the situation in the province was getting worse and alarming. “OPDs are closed in Sindh’s hospitals and residents are suffering badly.’’

He said that during the lockdown, thousands of people had lost their jobs, and claimed that the Sindh government had eaten billions of rupees in the name of distribution of ration among the needy people.

Qureshi said the Sindh government’s performance in providing relief during the plane crash was nothing but unsatisfactory.

He suggested that the Sindh government and its ministers should take practical steps to cope with the crisis instead of making statements on media just for political point-scoring, adding that the PTI would raise voice for Karachi’s residents because they voted for the PTI and outright rejected the Pakistan Peoples Party.