KARACHI, June 12: A former chief justice of Pakistan Syed Sajjad Ali Shah has stressed the need for creating an education-friendly environment in Lyari. He regretted that Lyari, once a peaceful area, was now being considered as unsafe place because of the activities of some criminal gangs. Despite poverty and lack of civic facilities, the locality had remained a centre of academic and political activities in the past.

There had been complete peace and tranquillity in Lyari and in spite of inadequate resources, all communities lived there in harmony.

According to him, the problems being faced by the people living in Lyari today are not new. In fact, the same had been never been addressed seriously by successive governments.

Justice Shah was speaking at a seminar titled Lyari and its educational problems held here on Sunday under the auspices of the National Workers Party in collaboration with the Education Cell of Baloch Ittehad.

It is the responsibility of the state to provide all basic facilities, including education, to its citizens. The state’s failure in fulfilling its responsibilities in the case of Lyariites is causing frustration among the people, already overburden with the high cost of living. They cannot even afford availing essentials of life.

Justice Shah accused the present rulers of pursuing the agenda of US imperialism and ignoring the basic needs of people.

He dispelled the impression that all madressas were centre of terrorism, saying that he himself had been a student of a madressa, located in Khadda (Nawabad) where he completed his primary education.

The former justice said: “Islam is religion based on reason and knowledge, and has nothing to do with terrorism. It is the duty of every Muslim to acquire knowledge.”

He also stressed the need for creating awareness about importance of education by holding similar events.

Earlier, speakers at the seminar criticized the government for ignoring Lyari’s educational requirements and held it responsible for the deterioration in the standard of education in the country in general and Lyari in particular.

Syed Sajjad Ali Shah chaired the concluding session of the seminar which was addressed by NWP leaders Yusuf Baloch, Usman Baloch, Professors Ali Mohammad Shaheen, Mr Noman, Latif Baloch and others.

The speakers, criticizing education policy, said that it envisaged class-based education and served the interests of only the elite class.

They called for introduction of a democratic and secular educational system in the country keeping in view the modern day needs of the society.

In the morning session, Maria Hafiz Ismail, Professors Tauseef, Ghafoor Baloch, Wahid Baloch, Anis Zeedi, Yaseen Sheikh, Sulaiman D. Mohammad, Qazi Khizar Husain, MPA Rafiq Engineer, Lal Bakhsh Rind and others expressed their views. The session was chaired by Usman Baloch.

In her paper, Ms Maria revealed startling facts about the state of education in Lyari. She said that for a population 1.8 million, there were only 103 primary schools for boys and 58 for girls. Most of these schools were without basic facilities, such as water, lavatory and furniture.

The other speakers deplored that the government schools in the area were poorly managed and in most of them, teachers did not attend to their duty regularly.