HARIPUR, Jan 23: The people of the villages affected by the discharge of polluting effluent from the Hattar Industrial Estate here on Monday threatened on Monday to hold demonstration if industrialists failed to stop emission of hazardous gases into the air.

The threat was given at a meeting attended by residents of the Hattar village and surrounding localities at the union council Hattar. The meeting was attended by the UC nazim Malik Mohammad Akram and activists of different NGOs.

The speakers said that the cement manufacturers of Hattar had installed faulty dust collection system due to which people of the area were exposed to harmful asbestos dust.

“Our people are becoming sick due to these industrialists who had, as a reward of our sacrifices for industrialisation, given us diseases of different kinds”, said Malik Qamar Hayat the member of Omar Ashgar Khan Foundation board.

He warned that the people would not tolerate such inhuman attitude anymore.

Mohammad Sadaqat of the Human Development Organisation said that the incidence of respiratory disease and allergy was common among the residents of affected villages within the radius of 20 km.

He offered free legal aid to the affected people in case of litigation against the errant industrialists.

Ibrar Shah of the Rural Development Project said that the cement manufacturers have got registered their organisations and spending funds for providing healthcare and other facilities to the people of some cities of Punjab rather than earmarking these funds for the welfare of people where they were criminally polluting the air.

He said that the industrialists were approached several times but their repeated requests fell on deaf ears and they continued to flout the EPA’s laws, he added.

Malik Mohammad Akram nazim UC Hattar expressed his solidarity with the affected community and announced to take up the matter at the district council session.

He suggested that he would also involve district nazim Yousaf Ayub Khan and Minister of State for Finance Omar Ayub Khan for solution of this problem through dialogue. If we failed to convince the industrialists for respecting the EPA’s laws then the agitation would be the last resort.