Reopen Sea View beach

The authorities made the right decision to close the Sea View beach in Karachi right after a large number of people drowned during the Eidul Fitr holidays. On the first day of Eidul Fitr, nearly 49 men drowned at the beach. That part of the sea was cordoned off, with the government also imposing Section 144 on the entire coast to keep people away from the water. It has been nearly three months now, the waves are now of low intensity, the sea has calmed down and the monsoon is over. However, the closure of the beach continues for no reason. During the Eidul Azha holidays recently, the authorities barricaded the Beach Avenue to create hurdles for cars and motorcycles making their way to the beach, with the announcement that they will continue to stop people from going into the water.

In a city where free-of-charge recreation spots are hard to come by, the continued closure of the beach is unfair. When there are no open spaces available elsewhere, the open stretch of the beach was possibly the only source of recreation for thousands of people. Another negative impact that the beach closure has had is on the livelihoods of small-scale vendors and businesses that were operating in the area. Men selling corns, pani puri, taking instant photographs and renting swimming trunks have been forced to wait helplessly for the government to reopen the beach so that they can start making a living again. The Gizri fishermen staged a protest recently to demand of the government to let them fish on the shore; otherwise, they, too, would be deprived of a livelihood. What is needed now is for the government to implement safety measures, like the stationing of life guards, making rescue services available and ready at all times near the beach, and placing marks on the sea shore to let people know the limits they can swim up to. With these measures in place, and the fact that the sea has calmed down now, there is no reason why the beach should be kept closed.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2014.

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