Hamara Karachi Festival: 500 children walk for peace - and biscuits

Town officer says schoolchildren were 'forced' to take part in the event.

KARACHI:

The second day of the Hamara Karachi Festival (HKF) seemed to be a celebration of motor skills as all kinds of races — from walks to cars to donkey carts — were held.

However, while hundreds cheered on the sidelines and enjoyed the dust kicked up by racing donkeys and bicycles, not all participants were exuberant.

“Schoolchildren from low-income areas were forced to participate in the Peace Walk,” a Town Officer told The Express Tribune.

Karachi DCO Muhammad Hussein Syed was directed by Sindh Local Government Minister Agha Siraj Durrani to instruct the city’s education department to ensure schoolchildren were taking part in the HKF festivals, especially the walk.

“Officers in the department ordered headmasters, headmistresses and superintendents to bring 100 children from each town,” the TO claimed. He said schools in five towns made sure that at least 500 children took part in the walk. The children carried banners and shouted their hearts out but still, it was the public representatives who walked in the front so that the cameras could only focus on them, he added.

The first peace walk was held on Saturday. It started out at the Quaid’s mausoleum. The children, and lower cadre town employees, might not have received their share of the limelight but they were offered water, biscuits and juice.

Donkey-cart race

Head of Hamara Karachi Foundation Nasreen Jalil promised to promote the donkey-cart race as she handed out the prizes to the winners of Sunday’s race at the Jahangir Kothari Parade, Clifton.

The race started from Gulbai and ended at the Kothari Parade.

Driver Peeral came first by covering the 13-km distance in 18 minutes while Muhammad Saeed secured second position and Kamo Shah was declared third. Peeral was awarded Rs10,000 while the second position holder received Rs7,000 and the third won Rs5,000.

All other participants received Rs500.

Additional input from PPI

Published in The Express Tribune, March 7^th, 2011.