DACCA: […] Provincial Relief Commissioner, Mr A.M. Anisuzzaman, seemed almost perplexed by the shower of questions mostly by foreign correspondents on the handling of different aspects of the whole cyclone issue, [and] replied in the negative to a question whether the Government had correct pre-disaster figures of the population of the affected areas. He also refuted charges that the Government had totally failed to rise to the occasion in its handling of the gigantic task properly. …

Mr Zaman, who was virtually heckled by a dozen foreign correspondents about the role of the Pakistan Air Force and the Army in the relief operation, said that three PAF aircraft and one helicopter were already in action while more are expected from West Pakistan. A large number of Army personnel mostly from the Medical Corps and Engineering Corps were already in the affected areas carrying out different relief and rescue operations, he said, refusing to disclose their number.

... Asked if foreign carriers of relief materials were being detained in Karachi for customs checks, Mr Zaman said, “I have no information on this”.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2020