At the request of the Punjab government Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif has formed a three-member judicial commission to investigate breaching of dykes in southern Punjab.
The judicial commission will be headed by LHC judge Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and will include INP Secretary Mansoob Ali Khan and UET engineer Abdul Sattar Shakir.
Several politicians and wealthy landowners have been accused of breaching dykes to save their own lands, as a result of which many areas have been submerged under water.
Pakistan ambassador to the UN, Abdullah Hussain Haroon, said on Thursday that landowners have allegedly diverted waters from the floods away from their own properties and into villages. He called for an inquiry into claims that embankments had been allowed to burst to protect commercial crops.
“Over the years, one has seen with the lack of floods, those areas normally set aside for floods have come under irrigation of the powerful and rich,” Haroon told the BBC’s HardTalk programme.
“It is suggested in some areas, those to be protected were allowed, had allowed levees to be burst on opposite sides to take the water away. If that is happening the government should be enquiring.”
A month of catastrophic flooding has killed 1,760 people and affected more than 18 million, according to the UN, and large areas of Pakistan, especially in the southern province of Sindh, remain under water.
More than 8.9 million acres of productive farmland have been destroyed by the floods.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 3rd, 2010.
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