Controversy emerges over naming roads in Hyderabad

The Qasimabad municipal committee (QMC) on Tuesday issued a notification naming roads in the area, mostly after towering political personages. However, the decision concerning one of the eight roads drew the ire of the family of a martyred Customs official, whose name was to be given to one of the arteries.

"The municipal committee passed a resolution last year to name the road going from Naseem Nagar to Sehrish Nagar after my father but the QMC chairperson [Kashif Shoro] deliberately delayed its implementation," alleged Abdul Waheed Shaikh, whose father, customs official Abdul Ghaffar Shaikh, who was killed during an anti-smuggling operation in Hyderabad's Tower Market in 2016.

According to the notification, the road in question has been named Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Road. "Bhutto's name is already being given to so many places," pointed out Abdul Waheed. "The authorities ought to acknowledge the services and sacrifices of people from other walks of life too."

According to him, a few days before issuing the notification, Shoro offered to name a half-kilometre thoroughfare after his father. "I rejected the offer for the smaller road and demanded that the municipal committee's resolution be implemented," he shared. "But Shoro warned me we would lose even this opportunity."

On July 8, 2019, Customs collector Khalid Hussain Jamali wrote a letter to the then-Hyderabad deputy commissioner (DC), asking him to name the road in question as Shaheed Abdul Ghaffar Shaikh Road, to honour the martyred official. The DC wrote to the QMC, which passed a resolution declaring that the road should be named after Abdul Ghaffar on August 28, 2019. When the process failed to move forward after this, several officials wrote to the QMC over a span of months, but to no avail.

The family took up the matter once again last month, and on June 30, the additional DC wrote to the QMC again. The process was then speeded up, with eight roads named within a week - but none after Abdul Ghaffar.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 9^th, 2020.