DADU: The custodian of the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine, Syed Wali Mohammad Shah, has expressed dissatisfaction over the number of security personnel deployed in and around the shrine and warned that if the security is not improved, all custodians of Sindh would hold protests across the province against the Sindh government.

Mr Shah told journalists on Wednesday that poor security was causing fear among devotees and Sehwan residents. If, God forbid, any untoward incident took place, its responsibility would rest with Jamshoro district administration and police, he said.

He pointed out weaknesses in the present security arrangements at the shrine and asked the district administration and police to reinforce measures. In the wake of the suicide blast at the shrine 41 days ago, which killed over 90 people and left 354 devotees injured, the government should have deployed commandos and Rangers personnel equipped with modern security gadgets to prevent any possibility of the repeat of such terror incident again, he said. However, he observed, these steps had not been taken.

Mr Shah said that a number of families of the blast victims complained that despite over a month since the blast they had not yet received dead bodies of their loved ones.

He said that the closure of the golden gate of the shrine in the wake of the terror incident had added to devotees’ problems as they had to pass through the narrow entry gate to enter the shrine.

He said that he was not satisfied with Auqaf department’s management of the shrine affairs and accused officials of receiving bribes from devotees. He had time and again asked high officers of police to improve security at the Qalandar shrine and other shrines of the province but nobody paid any heed, he said.

He said that many families of blast victims had not received any compensation announced by the Sindh government and demanded immediate payment of compensation to the victims’ heirs.

Sehwan ASP Dr Sami Malik rejected the custodian’s opinion on shrine security and said that 100 policemen guarded the shrine on normal days.

The number of policemen was increased to 150 every Thursday night when the devotees’ number doubled, he said.

However, police was ready to act in the light of the custodian’s suggestions if he had any, he said.

He said that on special events like the arrival of a religious or high-profile figure the number of policemen was raised to 500. All devotees were made to pass through six walkthrough gates before they were allowed into the shrine, he said.

He said that 50 CCTV cameras were installed in and around the shrine and personnel of intelligence agencies and police constantly remained in contact with each other with regard to shrine security.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2017