August 8, 2002	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 28,1423

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 7: Islamabad based civil society organizations have asked the Capital Development Authority to declare Melody Food Park, inaugurated on Wednesday, as tobacco free.

The NGO, Network for Consumer Protection organized a demonstration at the Melody food park, denouncing the CDA’s decision of allowing tobacco companies to market their brands at the venue.

They threatened to boycott the commercial activity at the food park. A large number of civil society organization members attended the demonstration, here on Wednesday.

They demanded that food park should be declared free of tobacco industries’ sponsorships and ban sale of any kind of tobacco products in the area.

“On the one hand the ministry of health talks about legislation on tobacco control but the ground realities are quite different. Here we see the tobacco industry advertise their products with no restrictions at all”, said Dr Ehsan of the Network.

President of the Capital Citizen’s Committee, Bashir Ahmed Khan expressing his displeasure said the place was created for food cum recreational purpose, hence it should be declared tobacco free.

The participants were holding placards with slogans: “Say no to tobacco”, “food not death”, “food street or cigarette street”, “save our children from tobacco”, “tobacco is death”.