March 29, 2006	Wednesday	Safar 28, 1427

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MULTAN, March 28: The Supreme Court will take up on Wednesday (today) the issue of alleged pollution by ‘atomic waste’ buried in Baghalchur area of Dera Ghazi Khan. According to the apex court cause list, the matter will be taken up by a three-member bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan and Justice M Javed Buttar.

The court had taken notice of a petition forwarded by the Dera Ghazi Khan district and sessions judge to the Law, Justice and Human Rights Commission and summoned the attorney-general. The petition was originally filed with the court of Dera D&SJ in October last year. In the appeal, some residents of the Baghalchur area of Mubarki union council had alleged that the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission had been ‘dumping’ nuclear waste in their area and its ‘radioactivity’ was posing serious threat to human and animal life besides polluting the environment.

The D&SJ had initially summoned the authorities of PAEC in Dera Ghazi Khan and after five or six hearings sent the matter to the federal government for further action.

Baghalchur had been an important uranium extraction site of the PAEC since 1977. However, the extraction activity there was abandoned in 1999.

Talking to Dawn on Tuesday, the nazim of the Mubarki union council, Jaffar Khan Buzdar alleged that the PAEC was now using Baghalchur as the dumping site of ‘radioactive’ waste from its plants working in various parts of the country.

He said his father MPA Sardar Fateh Muhammad Buzdar had also raised the issue on the floor of the Punjab Assembly.