Picnickers put Mubarak Village at risk

Crowds of beachgoers violate govt ban, posing a threat to the fishing village

KARACHI: Mubarak Village, one of the oldest fishing villages in the suburbs of Karachi, continues to see the influx of reckless picnickers, despite the enforcement of Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code and the government's order to keep all recreational facilities - including beaches - closed.

According to a complaint filed by Mubarak Village councillor Sarfaraz Haroon at Mauripur Police Station, the impoverished fishing village, home to over 10,000 people, is at risk of being ravaged by coronavirus as buses full of  people continue to visit it in the pursuit of leisure and recreation.

Haroon's complaint further accuses the police of accepting bribes in return for allowing beachgoers to visit the village, located adjacent to the popular Hawkes Bay beach, which remains closed for public during a partial lockdown. It calls for the visitors to be stopped so as to keep the virus at bay and the fishing community safe from the deadly contagion.

Acknowledging that picnickers visiting the area did result in additional income for the village's residents, Haroon pointed out to The Express Tribune that allowing them to continue to the visit when the pandemic was on the rise would imperil fishermen's lives.

"It will only take a single infected person to transmit the virus to the residents of the villages and the consequences will not be limited to just Mubarak Village. At least 20 to 25 villages located in close proximity will likely also be hit by the outbreak," he warned, explaining that once a villager was infected, local transmission would pick up pace as fishing communities had close social ties and couldn't possibly abstain from social interactions.

Noting that fishing communities in the area were already living in abject poverty, deprived of water, gas and other basic facilities, he expressed fear that a disease outbreak would make survival even harder for them.

"The nearest hospital is located at a distance of 60 to 70 kilometres and an outbreak will mean sealing the locality. As a result, fishermen and their families will not just suffer from the disease, but hunger too," Haroon contended.

'In wait for aid'

Haroon was also aggrieved by the "government's ignorance and neglect" towards the fishermen, whom he said were left "helpless" during the lockdown.

"There are seven goths in Mubarak Village, and not a single house in any of those goths has received the rations promised by the government yet," he deplored. However, the councillor added that MNA Qadir Patel had distributed 100 ration bags and MPA Liaquat Ali Askani disbursed 50 bags, in their personal capacities.

He claimed that the details of 700 fishermen families from the area were submitted to the fisheries department for aid, but none of them had been provided even a one-kilogramme bag of bag thus far.

"The fishermen's families have only received Rs12,000 under the federal government's Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme, which has enabled them to survive through these hard time," said Haroon.

Otherwise, with a prolonged ban on fishing, decrease in the number of clients looking to hire fishing boats, decline in sales, they would hardly have been able to pull through the challenging situation, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2020.