KARACHI, Feb 17: The City Council Karachi has approved by-laws for the city graveyards and demanded that the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) should immediately start construction of boundary walls around new graveyards.

A council session met here on Tuesday, with city Naib Nazim Tariq Hasan in the chair, and warned that if the construction of boundary walls around new graveyards was not immediately started, landgrabbers could encroach upon the lands earmarked for the graveyards.

Council members also expressed concern that despite the allocation of funds in the CDGK budget 2003-04 for the construction of boundary walls, work had not been started yet.

The new by-laws are a modified version of the previous ones found appropriate by a committee which was formed for formulating by-laws. The committee has made some amendments in the old by-laws in view of some objections and suggestions raised by committee members.

The city council, after passing a resolution on the modified by-laws, mostly debated the registration of two FIRs against the nazim of UC-6 Gadap Town, Nazir Sajid, over the charges of running wine and gambling dens and teasing women in his area.

The council members severely criticized the police for implicating the nazim in fake cases and demanded that the government should immediately suspend SHO Pervez Gujar for registering the cases against the nazim.

Haji Siddique Rathore, leader of the Al-Khadim Group, condemning the act, said that either the police authorities should be called in the house for ascertaining facts about the case or the city nazim should announce a strategy to protect nazims from police atrocities.

"The registration of the cases against the nazim is an act of 'character assassination'," he remarked, adding that a serious thought should be given to the matter as the charges levelled against the nazim were grave and the nazim might be declared "absconder".

Earlier, UC-6 Nazim Nazir Sajid said that instead of him, all social activities were being run under the patronage of the SHO. The police officer had implicated him in fake cases when he had approached the SHO to take action after receiving complaints from area people, he added.

Razzaq Sangani, Sajjad Hyder Dara, Engineer Abdul Aziz, Junaid Makati and others also condemned the police act and called for proper action to put an end to police brutalities against nazims, which, they said, had become the order of the day. -PPI