January 03, 2008	Thursday	Zilhaj 23, 1428

HYDERABAD, Jan 2: Heirs of the people who were burnt alive or lost their lives during the violence and the transporters whose vehicles were torched after Benazir’s Bhutto’s assassination on Dec 27 are running from pillar to post to know whether the government would provide them compensation.

Authorities have yet to collect the exact data of properties or vehicles that have been torched in the district because until Tuesday no such statistics were available.

Police officials said that the recovery drive for those goods that have been looted by anti-social elements is going on. A bank guard, Yar Mohammad Babbar, was burnt alive in the ABL branch of Hala and his body was recovered two days after the violence. Similarly, two peons Hajan Lund and Mumtaz Jarwar of taluka nazim office Jhando Mari at Pyaro Lund were burnt alive and their bodies were recovered the next day. Two people Hamal and Hamid Ali were killed in an oil field during firing by law-enforcement agency personnel in the limits of the Husri police station.

The losses were largely due to the fact that police or rangers were seen nowhere in Hyderabad but in other districts. Messages were aired that police should confine their activities or one single mobile should not patrol any troubled spot.

Officials right from Provincial Police Officer Major (retd) Ziaul Hassan to the DPO Hyderabad have been strongly defending the police’s performance during the last several days of violence and said that since the violence was so spontaneous it took time for the police to regroup themselves.

A countless number of vehicles, which included buses, trucks, oil tankers, cars, jeeps, and motorcycles, were burnt by mobs in Hyderabad and other adjoining districts during the last several days. Police have started removing the wreckage of these vehicles.

The Pakistan Motorway Police, National Highway Authority and Sindh police are jointly conducting an exercise to remove the wreckage from highways with the help of cranes so that smooth flow of traffic could be ensured.

The transporters who have suffered losses to the tune of millions of rupees are visibly perturbed over the loss of their properties. Since the government has not announced any compensation plan for them, they remain visibly perturbed.

In just one case of Tando Allahyar, 21 vehicles were completely burnt that were provided by transporters to Dr Irfan Gul Magsi, a PML candidate for the provincial assembly seat of the district.

Around 90 vehicles were provided by transporters and 21 of them had completely been burnt. These vehicles were parked at Shalimar Bagh in Tando Allahyar. Each vehicle costs Rs0.8 or Rs0.9 million while the remaining vehicles have been badly damaged.

According to a PML source, the issue of compensation strongly echoed in the PML meeting in Islamabad which was attended by PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

Participants from Sindh strongly demanded payment of compensation for the heirs and all those property owners who have suffered losses during the violence.

A reliable source said that the government would definitely announce compensation for heirs and affected people.

On Wednesday a group of these transporters staged a protest demonstration outside the local press club demanding compensation for vehicles gutted in Tando Allahyar during the recent spate of violence in the wake of the assassination of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

Speaking to journalists, Waheedur Rehman, Haji Abdur Rauf, Ahmed Jan, Haji Hakeem, Wali Zaman and others visited the press club to brief journalists about their ordeal as they had lost their vehicles which were their only source of income.

They told journalists that they had given their vehicles for the January 8 elections to a candidate of the area, Dr Irfan Gul Magsi, and these were parked on his land when a mob torched them.

They said that each of the vehicles destroyed cost at least between Rs 0.9 to Rs 1 million.