BADIN, Feb 1: A large number of rain victims took out a procession and staged a sit-in outside the district secretariat here on Saturday to protest against delay in compensating them for their losses.

The protesters, including women and children, demanded immediate release of the compensation amount and announced that they would observe black day on Eid.They said that the victims would not be able to celebrate the occasion as they were unable to purchase sacrificial animals.

When contacted, district coordination officer Syed Mumtaz Ali Shah said that cheques of Rs5,000 each from the Zakat fund were being distributed among those whose houses had collapsed and added that the rest of the victims would also be given cheques.

However, the victims of rains and floods - half of the population of the district - will not be able to celebrate Eid owing to the neglect of the authorities in their rehabilitation as well as non-payment of compensation money.

The calamity that befell the district in the last week of July 2003 had wreaked the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and washed away hundreds of settlements. More than 137 lives were lost, 30,000 cattle heads were killed, 200,000 people were displaced, more than 55,000 houses were damaged or destroyed, 1,000 villages were flooded and crops on 225,000 acres of land were destroyed, incurring losses of Rs3 billion.

The president and prime minister visited the affected areas and assured the victims of early rehabilitation besides compensation of their losses. Sindh Chief Minister Ali Mohammad Mahar also paid several visits to the district, and declaring it calamity-hit, pledged early assistance to the affected people.

Surveys and resurveys were carried out by district and local relief committees and finally by the army for assessment of the losses and the reports were sent to the provincial government for release of funds.

However, due to the delay in release of funds caused by apathy of both the federal and provincial governments, a restlessness prevailed among the people who kept on putting pressure on the District Relief Committee by holding protests. Meanwhile, the chairman of the District Relief Committee, Syed Ali Bux Shah, resigned in protest against the delay in release of the funds.