24 April 2004	Saturday	03 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

KARACHI, April 23: At least nine low-ranking government employees have been suspended for chopping down the old and huge trees from Abdullah Haroon Road, it is learnt.

Those suspended are Saddar Town Deputy Town Officer Rehman Shaikh, Assistant Town Officer Mr Matloob, Overseer Fareed Warsi, Head Mali Mr Aurangzeb, Workman Maqbool Shaikh, Workman Mr Shabbir, Workman Mr Qayyum, Workman Manzoor Illahi, and Workman Karim Khuda Bakhsh.

More than 10 fully grown, mature trees, some of which were over a century old, have been cut down from along one of the busiest thoroughfares of the city that connects the downtown business district and the elite residential colonies of the city.

Sindh Forest Secretary Shamsul Haq Memon, responding to Dawn queries, said that trees were protected under two different laws. The Sindh Forests Act protected the trees outside municipal limits and the choppers could be sentenced up to six-month imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs25,000 could also be imposed on them, he elaborated.

The trees within the municipal limits were protected under the Sindh Trees and Parks Ordinance, which prescribed a fine of up to Rs 25,000 for chopping down a tree, he further said, deploring that the law was rarely implemented.

Conflicting versions are being given regarding the motif behind the tree-cutting exercise, which resulted in annihilation of the trees, some of which were silent witnesses to the growth of the metropolis.

Some official sources said that the security concerns of the consulate-general of the United States, which was also situated on this road, necessitated the cutting of these trees. They said a number of cameras had been installed in and around the consulate, for security reasons, at different points to monitor movement on various roads leading to the building.

Police officials on duty there said that many a times the people from the consulate came to them and asked them to look what was happening on different portions of various nearby roads.

They claimed that the fully-grown trees were hindering the proper functioning of the electronic surveillance cameras so the consulate probably pulled some strings and the obliging establishment moved swiftly to chop down the trees, which were termed lungs that clean up pollution from the city environment.

A police official on security duty at the consulate said that before the start of the tree-felling operation, a senior law enforcement official, who was accompanying the tree-chopping team, called up the consulate and informed them that the tree-cutting was about to begin, and soon it was initiated.

According to another version, the Saddar Town staff was ordered to prune the trees that were hindering the vehicular traffic on the road. The staff, during their pruning operation, saw that some of the trees had been affected by termite, so the entire trees were cut.

Yet another version said the trees had been cut to make space for billboards. A top town functionary recently had gained much notoriety for allegedly selling various prime locations at low rates to the out-door advertizers and getting kick-backs.

Some people feel that the tree cutting might have been carried out to create more saleable space at a prime location. The sources said that after the completion of the tree-felling exercise, when some concerned citizens and media raised hue and cry, the government, to calm down people's emotions, suspended its lower employees, who were just following the orders of their superiors.

The sources claimed that these employees had been assured that no serious action would be taken against them and that they would be compensated for the trouble they were facing nowadays.