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ISLAMABAD, July 11: The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Faisalabad administration to explain its position regarding complaints of contaminated water which resulted in the death of 12 people due to the outbreak of gastroenteritis in Faisalabad.
Acting on an application of Qazi Mohammad Bakhsh, a social worker from Faisalabad, Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry directed Advocate General Punjab Chaudhry Aftab Iqbal, district nazim Faisalabad, district coordination officer (DCO) and the authority responsible for the supply of water in the city to appear before the Supreme Court on July 17 in Lahore and explain the situation.
In his application, Qazi Mohammad Bakhsh had appealed to the chief justice to save the lives of many people by taking notice of the situation. He stated in his complaint that the death toll in the locality of Ghulam Mohammadabad (Faisalabad) due to the contaminated water had risen to 12 while a large number of patients had been admitted to the General Hospital Faisalabad.
Last May some 16,687 people alone were affected in the Ghulam Mohammadabad region due to the failure of the local health department to contain gastroenteritis.
Overall some 29,000 people were affected due to the supply of polluted water in Faisalabad.
Most of the casualties were reported from private hospitals and clinics during the first week of the outbreak of the disease as government medical centres were unable to provide medical care to the people, some reports suggested.
Still the emergency failed to move the civic administration, which showed little inclination to deal with the situation despite a rush of patients to the city’s hospitals and clinics.
Faisalabad was not the only city to witness apathy on the part of the inept government departments concerned since similar complaints also came from cities like Sheikhupura, Karachi, Hyderabad and Badin, forcing the two houses of the parliament to discuss the matter in detail.
APPEAL: In another appeal published in a newspaper from a woman, Shah Jehan of Rawalpindi Cantonment, the Chief Justice ordered to forward her case to the legal committee of the Pakistan Bar Council through its chairman.
She had stated in her complaint that the jail authorities concerned were not releasing her son, a graduate, despite the fact that he had been acquitted in a death case by the Additional Sessions Judge, Rawalpindi.
The chief justice also directed to send a copy of the same to the Punjab government for cooperating with the legal aid committee of the PBC for taking appropriate action. He has directed that a report be submitted in this case before July 17 in his chamber.
VIOLATION: Likewise in a separate case regarding violation of relevant law banning serving meal on the occasion of marriage, the chief justice directed the District and Sessions Judge, Talagang, to furnish an inquiry report before July 14 on an event at Talagang in which allegedly the Nazim of Union Council No46 was involved.
