Sindh to decide deployment of army in Monday’s meeting

KARACHI: The letter circulating in the media on army’s deployment in Sindh on the provincial government’s request is fake, claims a senior government official on condition of anonymity.

The interior ministry had issued a notification allowing the provinces and federal territories to seek help of the army to enforce standard operating procedures (SOPs) for curbing the spread of coronavirus, except the Sindh province. The Sindh government has officially announced that the decision regarding deployment of the army in the province would be decided in Monday’s (today) meeting of the provincial Corona Task Force team. The meeting would be chaired by Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah and a decision would be taken according to the prevailing situation, circumstances and data of the Covid-19 pandemic in the province.

The sources in the Sindh government claimed that the letter of Sindh Home Department, addressed to the secretary Interior Ministry, aired on electronic media regarding the deployment of the army in the province was fake. They concluded that the situation was better in Sindh comparatively to the other provinces and the provincial government’s departments could handle the situation accordingly but the final decision would be taken in Monday’s meeting. In a video message on Sunday, Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid said according to the notification, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Kashmir and Islamabad would avail the services of the Pakistan Army for the implementation of Covid-19 SOPs “as per their need”. He said Sindh had not opted to be a part of the measure for now. Rashid added that this was a “big decision”, taken because neighbouring India was reporting 350,000 or more Covid cases on daily basis.

In an official statement it was described that the Covid-19 claimed six more patients, infected 952 others in the Sindh province. Sindh chief minister claimed that as many as six more patients of coronavirus died overnight, raising the death toll to 4,599 and 952 new cases emerged, when 16,938 tests were conducted that constituted 1.7 percent death rate. Shah said 16,938 samples were tested, in which 952 cases were detected that constituted 5.6 percent current detection rate. He said so far 3,566,325 tests have been conducted, in which 278,544 cases were diagnosed, of them 94.2 percent or 262,296 patients have recovered, including 158 overnight. The prevalence of coronavirus is 9.64 percent in Karachi, 16.74 percent in Hyderabad and 3.01 percent in other districts of the province.

The CM said currently 11,649 patients were under treatment, of them 11,101 were in home isolation, nine at isolation centers and 539 at different hospitals. He added that the condition of 507 patients was stated to be critical, including 47 shifted to the ventilators. According to the statement, out of 952 new cases, 346 have been detected from Karachi. District-wise statistics are as follows; Hyderabad 231, East Karachi 175, South Karachi 80, Sukkur 73, Central Karachi 55, Larkana 38, Kashmore 36, Matiari 28, Shikarpur and Jacobabad 24 each, Malir 21, Naushahro Feroze 16, Khairpur, Nawabshah and Ghotki 15 each, West Karachi 13, Tando Allahyar 12, Qambar–Shahdadkot and Sanghar 11 each, Dadu 10, Umarkot 7, Badin and Jamshoro 6 each, Tando Muhammad Khan 5, Mirpurkhas 4 and Korangi 5 new cases reported. The Sindh chief minister emphasised the people to follow the SOPs accordingly.