“THE sea is not just coming in and flooding our homes; it is also bringing paranormal activity,” says Shaikh Ahsan, an ‘exorcist’ who has lately carried out various ‘exorcisms’ in the village of Sur Bandar in Gwadar.

“The sea crashes against the hills, as do the winds. And some angry supernatural creatures who have been disturbed by the change in the currents possess our people,” Ahsan further explains.

At the beach are Ali Akbar and Mohammad Bashir who assist Ahsan in his work. “We play heart-rending music till the possessed gets into a dhamal,” says Akbar, who plays the surod.

“The possessor, too, then comes out to expose itself,” Bashir adds. He plays the tambur.

“The possessor speaks all kinds of languages but when I start reciting the Kalima and the Durood Sharif, there is not much that it can do other than release its hold and move on,” says Ahsan.

Saliha Bibi from the Sur Bandar community blames this “paranormal activity” and other miseries on the jetty that is being constructed in the area, ostensibly to facilitate the fishing community. And she is not the only one. “This used to be a happy fishing village but the jetty construction and the work connected with it has driven the fish away,” she says. “The flooding in the area has destroyed our homes. We are forced to shift back as the sea moves inland.”

Naku Ashraf, an old fisherman from the area, says that experience has taught him that to interfere with the natural flow of the sea is to invite trouble. The people of Sur Bandar view the jetty that is being built by the Gwadar Development Authority (GWA) as a bane. They complain that GWA did not carry out any proper research before deciding where to build the jetty, and as a result it chose the wrong spot for its construction. The fishermen and others from the community think another spot, on the other side of the Sur Bandar hill, would have been ideal for the jetty and are upset that they were not consulted. Not only has the money used in its construction been lost, they say, the structure will need constant inputs of funds to keep it functional.

However, the Sur Bandar jetty and the breakwater near it are not the only ones of their kind. Others are built or being built in Pasni, Pishukan and Jiwani Fish Harbour and in Damb in Lasbela. The fishing communities in all of these places are claiming that they have lost out instead of having gained from these constructions.

Zubair Ahmed at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Gwadar office, explains the problems created by what he calls the “unplanned construction of a harbour”. These include “massive erosion” which leads to “more seawater coming on to the land causing damage and losses to the property of poor fishing communities in the area”.

Ghulam Qadir Shah, the coordinator for the Mangroves for the Future Programme, also criticises the construction of jetties in the area. “The waves that crash against the mud hills of the area add to the erosion as does the dredging needed to make the waters deep around the jetty for bigger boats. And the dredging needs to be constant otherwise the place will be filled by silt,” he explains.

It is ironic that some of the organisations that are supposed to be addressing the issue of coastal erosion are the ones contributing to it by unplanned construction. The jetty at Damb is being built by the Balochistan Coastal Development Authority (BCDA) for the last several years. Its director, Ahmed Nadeem, says that building jetties is one of their main functions, insisting that they “help fishermen and promote tourism”. When reminded about the delay with the Damb jetty, he says that “the work was held up. Things will improve once it is constructed and the fisherfolk see how useful it is for them.”

The reason for the delay in construction, Nadeem says, is lack of funds. “We needed 530 million rupees, of which we only got 50 per cent from the government. So now we only have an office in Damb and a half finished jetty.” Nadeem also says that in addition to funds needed to complete the work, BCDA needs money for the constant dredging in the area.

The GDA maintains that the jetties it is building at Sur Bandar and Pishukan have been designed by engineers with the help of consultants with experience in building jetties and that their usefulness will only be understood once they are complete. This, the people at the organisation say, is expected to happen soon, in about a year’s time. They blame the delay on floods and the security situation.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2015

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