KARACHI: Following the drowning tragedy on Saturday in which 12 persons lost their lives, authorities on Sunday closed all beaches, including Sandspit, Hawkesbay, Neelam Point and several others, for picnickers except the Clifton beach.

As a result, thousands of people were prevented by police from moving to the coastal belt of the metropolis from Manora to Mubarak village, spread over 30 kilometres.

Such action of the district administration and the police invited criticism from Mayor Wasim Akhtar, who was taking to the media after attending funeral prayers for the victims in North Nazimabad.

He advised the provincial home department that instead of stopping people from visiting the beaches, it should deploy mounted lifeguards at the beaches to restrain people from swimming in the sea.

“It is not the job of the police to block roads leading to the beaches,” the mayor added.

He claimed there were at least 46 lifeguards on duty on the 27-kilometre-long stretch when the tragic incident took place, but relatives of the deceased persons refused to buy that argument.

“We have closed the beaches temporarily until proper arrangements are made to prevent such incidents,” confirmed Karachi-South DIG Azad Khan.

Another police officer, Mauripur SHO Niaz Panhwar, said they had closed the coastal belt in exercise of powers conferred on the government by Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

He added that the authorities had initially tried to stop people from going in the sea but when they did not listen, the authorities had to close all the beaches.

The official pointed out that there were at least 2,000 huts between Hawksbay and KANUPP where the picnickers were not allowed to swim.

He proposed that people should be allowed picnicking only on certain points of the coastal belt with a decent number of lifeguards.

Political and religious leaders such as Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Arif Alvi, Jamaat-i-Islami’s Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman and a large number of people attended the funeral prayers.

Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2017