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floods Yeh Woh protest Nothing is
off target
The recent
rains in Sindh have left thousands By Shujauddin Qureshi Channo Kolhi, a 45-year-old
scheduled caste peasant, with a family of nine persons is living in a
thatched hut on the side of main Working as a share cropper on the agriculture land of a local landlord Muhib Dahri, Channo Kolhi has not only lost his entire property (thatched house), household items and livestock in the floods, but also a hope for the future. Already discriminated against for being scheduled cast, Kolhi is worried about the repayment of the loan, which he had acquired a few weeks ago from the landlord on a commitment to pay back at the time of cultivation of cotton crop. He was working at 25 per cent share basis along with his family. “The entire crop has been inundated and destroyed and I am worried how I would pay back the loan,” he says, adding that presently he does not have enough money to arrange food for his family. Kolhi and his family are not alone in facing this plight. Sono Mal and his family in Kunri Taluka in Umarkot district have a similar story to tell. Sono Mal, also belonging to lower Hindu caste, along with four other minority peasants, was working on a piece of 12.5 acres of land of a Qaimkhani landlord. The peasants were working on a cotton crop and before the rains they had performed the first picking of Phutti (seeded cotton), which earned an amount of Rs150,000 to the landlord. But mother nature was not
on the side of the poor peasants and the entire crop came under water. About
four feet water is Thousands of the flood affected families, majority of them belonging to minorities, have been displaced as a result of recent floods, emerging after 300 mm heavy rains in lower Sindh districts on August 11 and afterwards. Many experts term this flood a man-made disaster because the drainage canals in southern part of Sindh were broken due to breaches. Thousands of the affected families have either found a temporary shelter in the government relief camps in schools and dispensary buildings, or living on the raised places along roads, railway tracks and banks of canals. These people do not have access to potable water and are suffering from various diseases. They are waiting for the government help and food ration. Mirpurkhas, Badin, Tando Mohammad Khan, Tando Allahyar, Tharparkar and Umarkot are the worst affected districts. Some areas of Sanghar, Thatta and Hyderabad districts have also been affected by the floods. When talked to, majority of the people had a single demand from the government to immediately drain out the rain and flood waters. They did not demand reconstruction of their houses or cash support. Even though the government has announced to provide Rs20,000 through Wattan Cards, majority of them may be left behind because they do not possess computerised national identity cards, which is a necessary condition for availing the Wattan Cards. “People are compelled to
drink the rain water, which is quite harmful,” says Arjun Mohan, a social
activist. “This area is already facing water shortage because of the
reduction in fresh water flow in River Indus. The irrigation system in this
area is quite Arjun says people, particularly children and women, in the area are suffering from stomach diseases, skin problems and malaria. Standing water all around has also caused growth of mosquitoes. Although rains are the main cause of the heavy destruction, the floods have actually multiplied the miseries of the people. The main drainage canals including the World Bank-funded Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) were broken at over 200 places. LBOD carries polluted water containing chemicals and harmful particles from upper parts of Sindh and southern Punjab into the sea. At the time of recent torrential rains, which lasted for 50 hours, the canals could not discharge such a huge quantity of the water into the Arabian sea because of the high tide. Instead of going towards the sea, the rain water flowed in the reverse direction, which further inundated the area and caused breaches in the weaker banks. Sindh Irrigation Development Authority (SIDA) is responsible for repair and maintenance of irrigation and drainage canals in the province. “For many years, regular dredging of the canals has not been carried out, which has reduced the capacity of the canal,” says Abubakar Shaikh, a local social worker and President of Delta Development Programme (DDP), Badin. The LBOD did not have the capacity to carry such a heavy flow of water. Many saline water drainage canals also meet with LBOD in various areas of Badin district. “Rains had damaged the katcha houses, but floods coming from LBOD and other Sim (saline water) Nullahs have caused huge devastation, destroying standing crops of cotton and rice,” says Shaikh. On August 11, the rains
poured without interval and inundated a vast area of Badin. There was no
rescue operation by the “Initially there were no government relief camps for these affected people. We forcibly broke the locks of Technical College in Badin to take shelter,” says Ibrahim Mallah, a fisherman of Badin’s coastal area. He complains that for 24 hours there was no government support and children and women were starving. This is not the first time that the LBOD has severely affected and displaced the population of Badin and lower Sindh areas. The 1999 cyclone, the 2003 monsoon and the 2006 rains had also caused overflows and breaches that displaced the population of Badin and adjacent areas and also caused loss of lives. Experts have repeatedly pointed out significant technical mistakes in the designing of the Tidal link and the Choleri Weir embankments that expose the local communities to extreme danger. The drainage network has also badly affected the environment of the Indus Delta. In the absence of fresh water, the disposal of toxic drainage effluent has contributed to the destruction of the remaining natural resources. Moreover, agricultural land is increasingly encroached upon by seawater and the entire grazing areas have been lost. The ground water has become badly polluted causing severe impact on human health. National Assembly Speaker,
Dr Fahimda Mirza, who belongs to Badin district and supervised the relief
work, admitted that the government resources are inadequate and people have
suffered due to inadequate response. The role of National Disaster Management
Authority (NDMA) also came under criticism. The NA speaker even wrote a
letter to the government to close down Lying on riverbed People living along River Sutlej invited the recent floods by encroaching upon the riverbed By Aoun Sahi “Our village has been totally submerged by the flood water of River Sutlej. The river has destroyed all our crops and killed our cattle,” Imran Javed, 40, a farmer in Mastiky village in Kasur districts tells TNS while standing at a safe distance from the flood water. He is lucky as his family is safe. According to him, the flood has affected thousands of farmers in the area — “All the pathways from our villages to the main road have been submerged in water, hindering transportation of our agriculture produce and milk to the market.” Farmers in the area have been using boats to bring their agriculture produce and milk to the road, and it is costing them a lot of money. “We are paying Rs200 to the boat for one round. It only helps us transport 10 sacks of maze grains in one turn. It takes more than 15 rounds to transport produce of one acre of maze crop,” laments Shaukat Ali, another farmer from Chandan Singh village in Kasur. But the local authorities claim the situation is in control: “Over 10 villages, more than 15,000 people and around 10,000 acres of agricultural land have been affected by the flood water,” Safiullah Gondal, assistant commissioner of Kasur, tells TNS. According to the flood warning authorities River Sutlej is still in low flood which means its water should not have caused problems for the people living along it. “About 70,000 cusecs water is passing through Sutlej River at Ganda Singh while dangerous level starts from over 150,000 cusecs water. This water should not create any problem for the villages along the river,” says Muhammad Riaz, chief of flood forecasting division at Pakistan Metrological Department. As per the Indus Waters Treaty, Riaz iterates, Sutlej belongs to India and it has hardly received even low level floods in years. “It is good for the area to be in a flood-like situation after some years. It recharges the underground water table.” For the damages caused to people by the low flood situation in River Sutlej, he blames the locals and authorities. “The people living in surrounding villages have encroached upon the riverbed because the river has remained dry for years. They have built houses and started cultivating crops in the riverbed. So, even low floods can seriously affect those living on the riverbed.” Riaz says. He stresses the issue has been discussed many times with the provincial government and other concerned authorities, but nothing has changed yet. “Rather, the phenomenon of encroaching upon the riverbed is ever increasing in Pakistan”. Though residents of these villages deny encroaching upon the riverbed, social activists in Kasur have a different story to tell. “People started grabbing the riverbed of Sutlej soon after Independence in 1947 over bogus claim, but after the 1971 war this phenomenon increased manifold. Many officials of the Revenue Departments were also involved in it. In 1981, many of these allotments were cancelled by the Border Area Committee, but people kept grabbing the land,” Malik Muhammad Safdar, prominent social activist in Kasur, tells TNS. It is not easy for the authorities to retrieve this land, he opines. “It is fertile land. In Kasur, people have been cultivating cash crops like maze, cotton, potato and vegetables and earning a lot of money. The riverbed has become non-existent here due to encroachment,” he says. An official of Irrigation Department in Kasur says, besides encroaching upon the riverbed, people have built private bunds to divert the flow of river water. “They have done so to save the agricultural land they have grabbed. But this is dangerous. It can even force the river to change its course. We have raised this issue with the local administration many times but of no avail.” Quite on the contrary, Safiullah Gondal thinks infringing on the riverbed is not an illegal activity. “According to the Revenue Department records, they are legal owners of this land. How can we force them out. Moreover, India does not release water in Sutlej River every year. It does so after 8-10 years,” he says. But disaster management experts do not buy this argument. They believe the government needs to define flood plains. “We need to do strong legislation to save our riverbeds. Sutlej has been turned into a stream in Kasur district as people have encroached upon its land. So, these people start making a lot of noise even in a low flood situation,” Ahmed Kamal, spokesperson for National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) tells TNS. “I have been raising this issue for the last five years. It is amazing that people have not only managed to get electricity connections for their houses in the riverbed, but have also managed to get sewerage systems, schools and hospitals established there,” Kamal says. By Masud Alam Happiness is a state human
beings seek and eagerly enter into. We, the Pakistani Muslims, are coerced
and arm-twisted into it. We are told when to cheer up, when to act somber and when to beat our chest, much like the inhabitants of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”. When it’s time to be sad no one is allowed to be happy whatever the reason. When it’s time to fast the sick and the faithless must starve too. And when it’s officially time to celebrate, everyone better say cheese and grin for the camera. No wonder then some people in this country routinely rebel against the orders by celebrating on a day of their own choosing, or not celebrating at all. One of those coercive occasions is upon us. Happiness is being shoved down our senses to prepare us for Eid-ul-Fitr — the official occasion to be happy. “Double the happinesses of eid with Buffalo soap”, “Join in the celebrations of eid with frog-skin shoes”, Share the happinesses with Majha sweets” … And there’ll be no let up until all of us have hugged a few dozen people, fed ourselves and our guests to sickness and distributed all the money leftover from buying new clothes for the entire family, among nephews and nieces. And their children. We do what we have to do, all the while pretending to be happy, but the plain fact is eid is possibly the saddest day of the year. No, not because our eids usually follow a devastating earthquake, a plane crash, mega floods or wholesale killing of fellow citizens. It’s because our lives are so joyless and devoid of anything faintly enjoyable save tandoori chicken tikka that we will ourselves into believing that happiness visits us this Wednesday. Or Thursday. We pretend to be happy for the sake of our children, our aged parents, our larger family … we do it for the sake of others, and so everyone pretends to everyone else and by the end of the day we are so tired of pretending that we finally realise eid makes no one happy. And why should it? If I am a religious person who believes Ramzan to be the month of blessings, why should I be happy to see it end? If I am convinced of the physical and spiritual benefits of fasting, how can I celebrate the gradual return to a sick body and soul? And anyway who decided that a morning prayer in a foreign language; a trip to graveyard to remember the dear departed, or random departed souls if none of your dear ones have made it to the grave yet; and large platters of vermicelli with milk and sugar, is the halal recipe for happiness? It’s not like we are inventing happiness; people have been celebrating festivals and special occasions ever since they learnt the meaning of ‘boredom’. And if there’s one word to describe a majority of them, it’s the ‘f’ word — fun. Give your children a sneak preview of Mardi Gras, Christmas, Hannukah, Holi, Diwali … and then give them choice to pick their favourite. I assure you it won’t be eid. Even a child can tell its boring except for eidi, that too if it accumulates into a substantial amount. Having fun on special occasions is all about symbols, icons, some basic objects and techniques, and above all, it’s about loosening up those G-spot muscles. Give up control, even for a day in a year, and people will figure out for themselves how to have fun. Christians didn’t get extravagant festive ideas from their scriptures, just as Muslims didn’t get the no-fun philosophy from theirs. It’s all made up. Why, Christians even made up Christ’s date of birth for collective convenience. And they haven’t even tried to be original with their objects of celebration. The fern tree is European rather than Middle Eastern where Christianity was born. If there was an Asda in Nazareth, it would more likely stock up baby palm trees for the purpose. Jews light up candles, Hindus paint intricate organic patterns outside their front door and use tonnes of colour, Sikhs have their Besakhi when they beat drums and dance around bonfire, Christians decorate their trees and sing carols … Why can’t we make up something nice for our prime festival? Something fun for the whole family … whole community? Can’t we use some light, colours, songs, games, stories? Anything that’s cheerful and is participated by a vast majority of the community? Aah … forget it. Happy eid. masudalam@yahoo.com
protest The
anti-corruption movement launched by Anna Hazare has been By Aniket Alam What we witness in India
today in the form of an anti-corruption movement is nothing short of a
“corruption carnival” where the Before we get to that, it is important to recognise that there is a strong and growing undercurrent of anger against the exposure of corruption in and around the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government ruling from New Delhi. In the two years since it was returned to power, exposes of massive corruption have occurred with remarkable regularity involving top political leaders and the government is seen to be evasive and reluctant in taking action against the guilty. Their complicity in corruption and lack of initiative to combat it, along with the government’s inability to curtail price rise, has slowly built up popular anger to a point where all it needed was a well-timed spark to explode. This was provided by an unknown (to most urban India) man from rural Maharashtra — Anna Hazare — who claimed a pure and puritanical Gandhian legacy and promised a universal antidote to a problem which was worrying all. However, the first thing which strikes an observer as topsy-turvy about the anti-corruption movement is that its most vocal advocates and volunteers come from precisely those social backgrounds which have benefited the most from corruption. This is the urban middle class, which is the prime beneficiary of tax evasion, bribery (as service providers and government functionaries), commissions and cuts from contracts and projects undertaken (as businessmen and traders) and of nepotism and personal influence exercised through a network of “people like us”. The second upside-down aspect of the anti-corruption movement is that it proposes a massive increase in bureaucracy and regulation for a problem which has been caused by an excess of this very thing — excessive bureaucracy and regulation. The Lok Pal institution, as proposed by the smartly branded “Team Anna”, is a gargantuan bureaucracy of hundreds, if not thousands, of officers, spread out all over the country. Not only is this Lok Pal institution proposed to investigate complaints, it will also have the power to prosecute, judge its own prosecution and pass sentence on the accused. It will not only sit over the executive, including the prime minister, but will also look into complaints against members of the judiciary and parliamentarians thus being the overlord of the legislature, judiciary and executive. Such a proposal, as will be evident to anyone with any iota of understanding, is a recipe for totalitarianism and a constitutional logjam under any form of democratic polity. What really takes the cake is that this proposal has been drafted by a team which includes top Supreme Court lawyers. It does away with the numerous checks and balances which define the Constitution and subverts parliamentary institutions. Members of parliament can also be hauled up before this Lok Pal for specific speeches given and votes cast inside the house. It can investigate, stop and prosecute any policy and its implementers if it finds — in its different roles as cop, prosecutor, judge and executor — any of them to be “corrupt”. Given that corruption has not been defined — is it about theft of public money, is it about abuse of power and if so whether it is about abuse of state power alone or also power which comes out of social hierarchies and economic inequalities, is it also about nepotism and influence, and finally, does it cover the corruption of the private sector or is it only about government institutions — it is easy to see that such vast, unchecked and undefined power that will accrue to the Lok Pal will be the death of democracy. Those who have drafted this bill have forgotten that “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The “Jan” (People’s) Lok Pal bill should never be allowed to become the law of the land. It is a cure which is, perhaps, worse than the disease. This brings us to the third anomalous aspect of the entire anti-corruption movement in India at present. Why has such an apparently anti-democratic idea gained such spontaneous popularity? The answer to this is somewhat complex but there is clearly mass anger against the series of corruption scandals which have rocked the present government. Not only has the amount of money involved been unprecedentedly massive, it has tarred the top levels of the government with prima facie proof of wrongdoing. But apart from this, there have been a few other “firsts” in the unfolding of these corruption cases. For the first time the role of the private sector and corporates has come under the spotlight. Big telecom firms linked to some of the biggest corporate houses of India — Reliance, Tata, Unitech among others — have been shown to be prima facie guilty of aiding and abetting corruption. Also, for the first time the media — both television as well as print — has been shown to be infested with corrupt practices and personnel and on the pay of private, vested interests. Thus for the first time, corruption has been shown to be not the preserve of the “politician” but something which is much more widespread. The massive agitation launched for the “Jan” Lok Pal is, in my opinion, a counter strategy of these sections to deflect the attention which had started coming on them in the unravelling of corruption in the past one year. Anna Hazare himself is a person who gained fame for successfully mobilising his village in the dry parts of Maharashtra to undertake water conservation methods and thus turn it into a green, agriculturally sustainable place. This has been a commendable effort, but has come along with a fairly conservative social and political ethic. Violations of laid down moral codes are punished by public flogging (yes you read that right!!), elections are not allowed and caste and gender hierarchies are preserved, though abuses ameliorated. Hazare has been well-known among water activists and environmentalists for some time and had also taken up some movements against corruption in his home state, but his launch on the national stage was sudden and appears well-planned. He started his first public “fast unto death” days after India’s cricket world cup victory and ended it just when the Indian Premier League was about to commence, thus ensuring maximum media coverage and public attention. This “movement” managed to ride the “nationalistic” high already prepared by the world cup win and used the media, particularly television, to full and professional effect. Suddenly, out of the blue, Anna Hazare, with a demand none really knew anything about but which promised to bring the corrupt to book, had become a national figure and his anti-corruption movement had become “breaking news” on television on steroids. There is no way that one can prove that this anti-corruption movement has been instigated by the large corporates and the media, other than conjecture. However, there are some points which are fairly incontrovertible. One, without any organisation this ‘movement’ has reached all over the country thanks to saturation coverage by the media. Two, by focussing only on government and politicians it has successfully diverted the glare away from corporate and media corruption which had become difficult to deny till very recently. Three, by raising an issue which hurts the poor more it has managed to mobilise sections of the “great unwashed”, especially in the urban areas, in its support. On the other hand, by keeping the focus on only government and politicians, by keeping the definition of corruption vague and by proposing a monstrosity of a Lok Pal, it also ensures that corporate and media corruption remain untouched, while democratic institutions — which have been the only, if imperfect, checks on these two — are weakened. Four, by targeting the Congress-led government and pushing it into a corner, it has opened up space for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its electoral front, the Bharatiya Janata Party, to come out of its political marginalisation. Finally, it has also caught the left and progressive forces on a sticky wicket as they remain unsure about how and what to do. In all of these, the anti-corruption movement has been the first successful attempt, after 2002’s Gujarat killings, to push the locus of Indian politics to the right. It remains to be seen whether the organised right reaps its electoral benefits or will a successful political challenge be launched against it. The writer is an editor at
By not sparing even mosques, the TTP is sending the message that it would go to any length to harm those forming lashkars against it By Rahimullah Yusufzai The suicide bombing during the Friday prayers on August 19 at a mosque in Jamrud in Khyber Agency has been linked to an ongoing blood-feud between the Kukikhel Afridi sub-tribe and the outlawed militant organisation, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The explosion claimed 51
lives and caused injuries to over 100 others. Except two Afghan refugees
living in the area, all those killed Talha, spokesman for the Tariq Afridi group of the TTP, claimed responsibility for the bombing a day after the attack and threatened more if the Kukikhel Afridis didn’t stop resisting the TTP militants in Khyber Agency’s Tirah valley. He said it was revenge for the militants killed by the tribal lashkar, or volunteer armed force, raised by the Kukikhel Afridis to fight the TTP in Tirah, the remote and mountainous valley on the Afghan border where all the Afridi sub-tribes live in their own patch of territory in pleasant weather conditions beyond the government control. The claim made by Talha was credible as the TTP’s Tariq Afridi group has not hesitated to bomb mosques in the past to eliminate its rivals. On November 5 last year, the group used a suicide bomber to attack a Friday congregation in a mosque in Akhorwal locality of Darra Adamkhel to target the rival militant group led by Momin Khan Afridi. Around 60 of the faithful praying in the mosque were killed in the attack. Tariq Afridi personally phoned this writer to claim responsibility for the bombing and justify it by arguing that the pro-government commander Momin Afridi prayed at this mosque and used it for plotting attacks against his group in Darra Adamkhel. One did try to argue with him by reminding him that children and old men and many having no link with Momin Afridi too were killed in the devastating blast, but he brushed aside the criticism by insisting that the mosque had become a centre for his rival group and those praying there shouldn’t have allowed its misuse. Nazeer Afridi, a TTP commander close to Tariq Afridi, was blamed for a similar suicide bombing in March 2009 at the roadside mosque near the FC checkpoint near Jamrud town on the Khyber Pass highway linking Pakistan with Afghanistan. More than 50 people offering Friday prayers were killed in the explosion, which as it turned out was aimed at the FC soldiers, Khassadars and other officials who prayed at the mosque. The blast brought down the structure of the small mosque and caused more damage. One also had to believe Talha’s claim about the bombing of the Jamrud mosque on August 19 because it is an open secret that the Tariq Afridi group is running a dangerous vendetta with the Kukikhel tribal lashkar in Tirah valley where their fighters have been engaged in running battles in recent months. There was every possibility that his men would strike at a mosque, jirga (assembly of elders) or hujra (male guesthouse) where their Kukikhel rivals would be congregating in Jamrud or Tirah to kill and injure as many people as possible in one go. The Madokhel clan of the Kukikhels had in particular earned the ire of the TTP because its tribesmen were said to be in the forefront in raising the lashkar and aligning with Mangal Bagh’s Lashkar-i-Islam militant group to expel the militants loyal to Tariq Afridi from Mehraban Killay and other villages in Tirah valley. In fact, the Mehraban Killay had turned into a battlefield as the TTP had managed to secure a foothold there and set up a base to threaten the Lashkar-i-Islam group. The latter joined hands with the Kukikhels to fight and uproot the TTP from Mehraban Killay. Several TTP fighters had been kidnapped and killed in the fighting and in desperation the Tariq Afridi group, cornered and fighting for existence in Tirah valley, seems to have chosen a mosque being a soft target while retaliating against the Kukikhel sub-tribe. It is possible that other mosques in the Kukikhel-populated Jamrud area too could have become a TTP target. It is also possible that the newly-built and spacious Shera Baaz mosque in Madokhel village that was eventually hit presented an easier and better target. It could accommodate up to 500 people and the death toll would be higher if the suicide bomber struck at the right time and managed to reach deep inside the mosque. The teenaged bomber did manage to enter the mosque and strike at the right time, 1.40 pm, when the main Friday prayers had just ended and nobody had yet left the crowded prayer hall. He caused much harm with the eight to 10 kilos explosives that he was carrying in his suicide vest stuffed also with nuts and bolts to cause maximum damage. Mercifully, he couldn’t bring down the roof or there would have been more deaths. Talha phoned reporters in Kohat from Darra Adamkhel, the gun-manufacturing semi-tribal territory to which the TTP commander Tariq Afridi belongs. Tariq Afridi, who was associated with the anti-Shia group Siphah-i-Sahaba Pakistan before joining the TTP some years ago, gained so much strength subsequently that he was made the TTP’s commander for both Darra Adamkhel and Khyber Agency. He also became influential in the neighbouring Orakzai Agency, where he and his fighters relocated after the military operation against him in Darra Adamkhel. His men easily move between Orakzai and Khyber agencies and Darra Adamkhel and are also able to fire rockets into Kohat city and send suicide bombers to strike in Peshawar city and rural Peshawar, particularly in Badaber, Mattani and Adezai where the villagers at a huge cost to their lives and properties have raised lashkars to defend their villages against the TTP and other militants. In the increasingly brutal fighting and the vindictive reprisals that have become the hallmark of the so-called ‘war on terror’ and the militancy sweeping parts of Pakistan and most of Afghanistan, it is obvious that no place is sacrosanct and nothing is off-target. The tribal, ideological and personal disputes have resulted in bombing of mosques and other places of worship as well as funerals, public meetings and other congregations. The TTP and its like-minded groups have an edge over their rivals as only they are in possession of suicide bombers, mostly young men ready to hit targets specified by their handlers. The TTP commanders have in particular gone after the government and military-sponsored tribal lashkars formed against them in Bajaur, Mohmand, Orakzai, Darra Adamkhel and other tribal areas. Their suicide bombers not only repeatedly attacked the Salarzai lashkar in Bajaur Agency and the Adezai lashkar near Peshawar, but also struck at jirgas where lashkars were to be raised against the TTP in Darra Adamkhel and by the Alikhel tribe in Orakzai Agency. Such ferocious strikes created fear and certain tribes refused to form lashkars or disbanded the ones already operating. By not sparing even mosques, the TTP is sending the message that it would go to any length to harm those forming lashkars against it on their own or at the behest of the government. |
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Badin-Hyderabad road because his entire village near Ansari Goth in Golarchi
Taluka of Badin district has been inundated by rain and flood water. 20
families of the same village are also living near him on the roadside in very
difficult conditions.
standing in the village, but the landlord and his armed guards do not allow
the peasants to leave the village because they collectively need to pay
Rs55,000 as their share to the input cost of the crop. “Qaimkhani even does
not allow my daughter to be shifted to a nearby hospital for the delivery of
her baby,” Sono tells this scribe.
defective as regular repair and maintenance of the canal banks is not
performed by the concerned departments.”
government and people left their homes for safety. Some NGOs provided boats
to the villagers living at raised places near their homes surrounded by the
water. There are other villages where men, women and children had to cross
knee deep water to reach a safe place.
NDMA as it has played no role in providing relief to the people.
world has been turned upside down at various levels.
were Kukikhels, which is one of the major sub-tribes of the Pakhtun tribe of
Afridis. The mosque is sited in the Madokhel village named after the clan in
Jamrud’s Ghundi area on the Warsak Road. The Madokhels are a branch of the
Kukikhel Afridi sub-tribe and had to bear the brunt of the attack as almost
all those killed and wounded belonged to their clan.