No one to take responsibility for inundated graveyard

Sachal Goth graveyard has been flooded with sewage water for four years

KARACHI: The Sindh government makes a lot of decisions. Most of the time, however, it ends up making a mockery of its own decisions.

A recent example of this is the case of a graveyard in District East's Sachal Goth, where human remains can be found floating in sewage water.



Earlier this week, the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) directed its relevant departments to arrange proper cleaning and lighting at the 48 graveyards within its jurisdiction in order to facilitate residents who visit the graveyards to offer prayers on Shab-e-Barat. KMC administrator Laeeq Ahmed also asked the district municipal corporations (DMCs) and the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) to arrange proper cleaning and repairing of water and sewerage lines within their jurisdictions.



However, a visit to the Sachal Goth Graveyard on Sunday morning showed that it was completely inundated with sewage water and a foul smell permeated the air. No resident dared enter the graveyard as the land had turned into a swamp.

Muhammad Mujeeb, a resident, said that this situation has been persisting for the last four years. He said the sewage water was much less this time. According to him, at times, the graveyard gets so full of dirty water that one can barely see the graves.

Another resident, Abu Bakar, said that around a year back a child drowned in the quagmire but her body could not be retrieved. He claimed that, despite officials paying visits ostensibly to solve the issue, nothing is ever done.

Blame game

Meanwhile, officials are playing the blame game and no one is ready to take responsibility for the sorry state of Sachal Goth Graveyard. KMC's media director Ali Hassan Sajid said that graveyard does not fall in their jurisdiction.



DMC East administrator Rehmatullah Shaikh accepted that the graveyard had been inundated for years and that nothing has been done. He said that he has asked KWSB several times to clean the chocked sewerage lines but they have not complied. "Even the local government minister Jam Khan Shoro took notice of the presence of sewage water in Sachal Goth Graveyard but nothing happened," he said.

Meanwhile, KWSB's District East superintendent engineer Ghulam Qadir Abbas said that the graveyard fell within the jurisdiction of District Malir. No KWSB official from District Malir was available for comments.

Taking notice of the presence of sewage water in the graveyard, the Sindh chief minister has directed the KWSB to immediately clean the graveyard and has asked for a report within 24 hours.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23^rd, 2016.