KARACHI, Oct 26: A total of 264 rape cases were reported to the police in 15 out of 20 districts in the province during the last year. Five districts where no case was reported to the police are Jamshoro, Shikrapur, Naushero Feroze, Shahdadkot and Kashmore.

This was revealed by Home Secretary in a written answer to a question of Humera Alwani during the question hour of Sindh Assembly session on Tuesday.

She had recalled in her supplementary question that according to Gen Musharraf women were raped with their consent and got foreign visas. “Would the minister inform the House that how many of them got visa?” she asked.

Replying on behalf of the home minister, Sindh Planning Minister Shoaib Bokhari said neither Sindh government had given any such statement nor he had read any such statement. Ms Alwani referred to Washington Post newspaper in which the statement of general was reported; Mr Bokhari said such a statement had not passed from his eyes.

In reply to Fariha Razzak, the minister said that as the cases were under trial so far no one was convicted.

Mr Bokhari further said that in the five districts where rape cases were not reported, neither the victim nor her heirs came forward to register any FIR.

Replying to Sharf-un-Nisa Leghari’s question, the minister said that if cases were brought to their knowledge, the government was ready to register FIR. He said the rape cases could be registered with the consent of the victims only.

In reply to the question of Rafique Engineer, he said that challans were submitted to the courts in 108 rape cases so far.

When Fariha Razzak asked whether there was any time frame to provide justice to the rape victim, Provincial Minister Saeeda Malik said that her department was making all efforts to provide justice to the victims as soon as possible, as justice delayed was justice denied.

On the statement of Qaim Ali Shah that the performance of prosecution department is not satisfactory, Shoaib Bokhari informed the House that prosecution department had nothing to do with the home department.

Replying to the questions of Humera Alwani, Fariha Razzak and Nisar Khuhro, the minister said that public safety commission were being set up at district level and so far 12 such commissions were set up. In other districts too, they were being formed. He admitted that there had been some delay in their formation because of those who were no more in authority and said that he did not like to go beyond. For Karachi District Public Safety Commission, the chief minister had nominated Mr Perwani.

Regarding smuggling of children to Dubai to use them as jockeys for camel race, Mr Bokhari said that so far three children were recovered and they were now with their parent while cases against accused were in courts. He said that a law had been enacted in Dubai banning the use of human being as camel jockeys. In Dubai, he added, robots were being used as camel jockeys instead of children. Besides, he said, the government had taken a few other steps as well to check the smuggling of children and their results were positive.

Earlier, speaking on a point of order former minister Imtiaz Ahmad Shaikh said that the technical committee’s report which was submitted to the federal government should be laid before the House as the Sindh assembly had passed two resolutions against construction of dams as they had apprehensions.

The provincial irrigation minister informed the House that the technical report comprises over 3,000 pages and was under study of the federal government. He said he had talked about it with Federal Water and Power Minister Liaquat Jatoi, who had informed him that the report would be submitted to the provinces after the study and would be laid before the House.

Earlier, Sindh Minister for Sports Qamar Mansoor taking exceptions to the statement given by leader of the opposition Nisar Ahmed Khuhro in his Monday’s press conference said that Sardar Ahmed was the Senior Minister for Finance and he was just pursuing the government policy as well as guidelines of his party on the issue of NFC because he too belonged to MQM which was working on NFC for the last five years, adds APP.

He recalled that during the budget session, Nisar Khuhro had alleged that Syed Sardar Ahmed had not fought the case of Sindh on NFC properly and this caused damage to Sindh province.

But, he said, Nisar Khuhro in his press conference on Monday had said that finance ministry was taken back from Sardar Ahmed because he was rightly defending the case of Sindh.

Provincial Education Minister Dr Hameeda Khuhro regretted a statement given by Nisar Ahmed Khuhro in his Monday’s press conference, calling for her resignation.

Speaking on a point of order, the minister said it pained her to read the statement of Nisar Khuhro demanding her resignation.

Retorting to Mr Khuhro’s demand, Dr Hameeda said that it was for her to decide to resign or when asked by the chief minister. She said that Mr Khuhro had nothing to do with her resignation and pointed out that it was during their government that a non-matriculated person was appointed as education minister.

Nisar Khuhro made it clear that he had stated this in the wake of a controversy on teaching of Sindhi and the chief minister before leaving for Umrah had stated that he was bypassed when education department issued a notification in this regard. He said there seemed to be some conflict between the educations department and chief minister and it was in this context that he had suggested the education minister to resign.