KARACHI, Sept 14: Human rights activists, speaking at a press conference on Sunday, condemned the government for not providing basic amenities like safe drinking water to citizens and demanded that pure water must immediately be provided to the masses.

They also criticized the concerned government officials for mishandling the grounding of Tasman Spirit, which resulted in environmental disaster.

They were speaking at the press conference organized by the Human Rights Commission for Pakistan at its office. The activists said that the basic human rights of the masses — as guaranteed in the articles 9 and 38(d) of the Constitution; in the articles 3, 8, 25 and others of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that has been adopted by the government — were being violated.

Highlighting the issue of potable water, they said that the quantity or the quality of the water being provided to the citizens of Karachi did not satisfy even the minimum requirements or standards as prescribed by the World Health Organization.

The human rights activists said that the contamination occurred due to the mixture of sewage with potable water had resulted in outbreak of various diseases among a large number of people, particularly women and children.

They said that between 30 and 50 per cent of the potable water was being lost due to leakages from pipelines while people in many parts of the city had installed suction pumps that was resulting in shortage of water to the deserving people, particularly those living at the tail of the water supply lines.

On the other side, water was being supplied through tankers to the citizens, for which people had to pay extra amount to the tankers’ mafia and the growing number of water tankers was also ruining the road network, the speakers added.

Coming to the environmental issue, they criticized the government officials of mishandling the grounding of Tasman Spirit, which resulted in environmental disaster. They alleged that many government officials were not technically qualified, but, they were holding highly technical posts.

They said that the failure of the authorities concerned to tackle the oil spill in a timely manner was a matter of national shame. The speakers demanded that the criminally negligent officials must immediately be brought to the book and awarded exemplary punishment.

The city and its neighbouring marine environment had severely been damaged owing to the pollution caused by 25,000 metric tons crude oil, they said.

They were of the view that the oil spill would not only make adverse effects on marine life, but also on the health of the citizens living near the coast and the livelihood of fishermen for a long time.

The speakers included HRCP Council members Ghazi Salahuddin, Dr S. Haroon Ahmad, and Roland de Souza. Other speakers were Jam Saqi, Prof Nauman Ahmad, Javed Azeem, and Abdul Rehman.