Auction block: 8 children put up for sale outside DCOs office

Muhammad Sadiq said he had lost everything in the recent floods and couldn’t afford to feed his family

MUZAFFARGARH:

A family of flood victims auctioned off eight of their children in Dera Ghazi Khan on Friday.

According to police officials, the family from Alipur brought eight of their children and put them up for auction outside the DG Khan commissioner’s office.

Local residents said that police officials and administrators at the commissioner’s office beat up the parents of the children and turned them away from the building.

Alipur Mud Wala resident Muhammad Sadiq along with his wife and eight children reached the commissioner’s office on Friday morning. “I have lost everything and have no money to feed myself or my family.

This is why I am putting my children up for sale. We came to the district commissioners office because they government has made no provisions to feed flood victims,” Sadiq said.

“My family has been going hungry for days and I want people to know that the government’s claims about taking care of flood victims are hollow. We have lost everything,” he added.

Assistant commissioner Abdul Ghaffar pushed Sadiq and his family out of the office and also had them beaten. Several police officials baton charged the family from the site.

“The man was protesting. He said he had lost everything and it was the government’s fault,” said an eyewitness Malik Shah.

Muhammad Sadiq and his wife Kodi Mai told reporters that they had built a new house after last year’s floods but the recent floods had destroyed the house.

“We could barely make ends meet last year and when we finally got the Watan card to rebuild we have lost the new house.

Now there is nothing,” he said. The family said that they were not provided aid and they were pushed out of the commissioner’s office.



Published in The Express Tribune, September 10^th, 2011.