KARACHI: Sindh Local Government Minister Jam Khan Shoro on Tuesday called the recent flooding of the city’s main roads and residential areas and pipelines bursts a “conspiracy to prove failure of the system” and said it was not the job of a political party but that of some miscreants.

The minister expressed these views during an interaction with the media while visiting different city districts to review a cleanliness drive.

After the inauguration of a plantation campaign in Shah Faisal Colony, Mr Shoro said he had enough evidence to believe that a conspiracy had been hatched with a view to maligning the provincial government.

“Sewerage lines in different areas have been found blocked deliberately with sacks and other solid stuff,” he said.

“It’s a proper conspiracy to prove that the local bodies system is not working and pretend that our cleanliness drive for Karachiites is not working. While handling flooding of M.A. Jinnah Road, workers found sacks filled with solid stuff which were deliberately placed into the sewerage lines.”

He said the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board had set up a committee to look into the incident and a fast-paced inquiry would find more information about this “deliberate disruption”. From Shah Faisal Colony, the minister with his team visited Fateh Park, North Nazimabad, in Central district to inaugurate a flower show.

Here, Mr Shoro rejected the impression that he actually blamed any political party for the conspiracy but insisted that they were “miscreants” that wanted to damage Karachi’s image for certain gains and tarnish the image of the democratic government.

“I don’t think any political party can be involved in such shameful acts,” he said. “I don’t blame any party. We are investigating the incident to reach them soon. But one thing is very clear that whoever these miscreants are, they don’t want Karachi to progress. We are determined to serve Karachi and for that you would see all powers under the law and Constitution will be transferred to the recently-elected representatives of the local bodies.”

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2016