SHC serves notices over Keamari gas leakage

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday issued notices to the federal and provincial governments, the Karachi Port Trust and others on a petition seeking inquiry into Keamari’s mysterious gas leakage incident that took lives of 14 citizens and left hundreds affected.

Petitioner Abdul Jalil Khan Marwat submitted in the petition that as many as 14 people had lost their lives and hundreds of others were affected due to mysterious poisonous gas leakage at the port area.

He submitted that the federal and provincial authorities failed to protect the lives of citizens and no precautionary measures were taken by the port authorities to prevent the deadly leakage. He sought an independent inquiry into the incident and a direction to the government to pay compensation to the legal heirs of victims and affected citizens.

The Pasban Democratic Party, through its chairman Altaf Shakoor, also filed a petition in the SHC seeking registration of cases against those responsible for the loss of human lives due to the poisonous gas in Keamari. The petitioner submitted that people of Keamari had to suffer hardships as they had to leave their homes due to the sheer negligence of the government functionaries who failed to help those citizens.

Local bodies poll

The SHC also issued notices to the Sindh local government ministry, Election Commission of Pakistan and others on a petition against not holding the local government elections in the province. Petitioner Syed Mehmood Akhtar Naqvi submitted that the Article 140-A of the constitution made it incumbent upon the government to hold local bodies elections.