JUI-F launches drive to resolve Shershah issues

Kicking off its preparations for the upcoming local government polls, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) has asked its union-committee-level leadership to initiate a public mobilisation drive by raising the civic issues of their areas.

In the Shershah neighborhood in District Keamari, the JUI-F’s local organisation on Sunday decided to initiate ‘Give Rights to Shershah’ campaign to mobilise the people to force the district authorities to resolve the issues of acute shortage of water and destroyed infrastructure in the neighbourhood.

Maulana Azeemullah Usman, the JUI-F’s Shershah chief who has been made the head of the All Parties Action Committee, a collective forum to run the campaign, said that roads and streets in the neighbourhood had been in disrepair for decades and clean drinking water was being sold with the connivance of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board.

He held that the District Keamari administration and KWSB officials were responsible for compounding the civic problems in Shershah. In the first phase, the action committee leaders would meet leaders of all political parties and elders of the communities, and run a door-to-door public meeting campaign, the JUI-F Shershah leader said. “In the second round, a historic sit-in will be organised whose date will be announced soon.”

Qari Muhammad Usman, a JUI-F provincial leader who also heads the party in District Keamari, said that with a strong organisational structure and support base in the metropolis, the religious party will take part in local government elections.

He said that most of the neighbourhoods in the newly carved District Keamari had been facing severe civic issues and the consecutive provincial and city governments had failed to address them.

“The civic problems have been mounting in various areas, such as Shershah, Ittehad Town, Keamari, Machar Colony, Baldia Town and Yousaf Goth because of the population growth, but the authorities have not been series in addressing them,” Usman told The News. He added that the party’s leaderships in the union committees had been directed to mobilise people in their areas to take to the streets.