KARACHI: Over 70 sea vessels, including fishing boats, trawlers and launches, hoisted the Pakistan flag as they chased one another into the Karachi harbour while returning from their fishing expedition for the Jashn-i-Azadi Boat Rally on Thursday.

In layman’s terms the rally, organised by the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) in collaboration with the Native Island Fisherman Association, started from the breakwater and ended in the harbour. Otherwise, it started from the PNS Qasim Marine Base and ended at the Pakistan Navy Dockyard, a distance of two nautical miles. All the people taking part were fishermen.

“We had been coordinating with them and had stopped all boats returning to harbour for this rally. They were also quite excited about the whole thing as this only happens once a year,” said Lt-Cdr Wajid Nawaz Chaudhry of the PMSA’s public relations officer.

Speaking more about the annual rally, Cdr Faisal Mahmood of PMSA said: “The aim of the exercise is to show solidarity with the nation. As you celebrate Independence Day on land, the fishermen do it in the waters. They also do it to show their solidarity with the armed forces.”

The PMSA besides having the policing role and being an anti-narcotics and smuggling force in Pakistan waters, also has the job of search and rescue. “Most of the boats we rescue are fishermen’s boats so we work quite closely with them. Besides, the round-the-clock patrolling of our surface ships and boats in the sea gives the others here, especially the fishermen, a sense of security,” he said.

Initially they were expecting some 250 boats for the rally. “We had been coordinating with the incoming boats for the past two days. They were around 250 in number but all couldn’t reach here in time. We waited till 17.15 hours. If we had waited some more there would have been an issue with congestion here. We had to hold the rally in a controlled environment,” he said.

“You see, Karachi harbor has a lot of merchant activity, which was specially held off for this race. Had we allowed that with the race, the captains would have found it very difficult to navigate.”

Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2015

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