KARACHI, Feb 19: At a convention of fishermen community held here on Saturday at Kaka village in Keamari Town speakers highlighted the problems being faced by the fishermen community, focusing mainly on their livelihood, worsening law and order situation in some coastal areas, increasing marine pollution and illegal encroachment on beaches.

They urged the government to put the coastal areas' social development at the top on its list of priorities as most of the residents were living in miserable conditions because of lack of basic facilities.Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum representative Mohammed Ali Shah said that 120 villages were located in Keamari Town where a large number of localities did not have access to potable water, sanitation, education and health facilities.

Similarly, 20 villages were located in the Bin Qasim Town coastal area where most of the population was facing the same problems, he added.

The government legislators despite repeated demands were hesitant to listen to the problems of the people, he said.

A community elder Haji Abu Bakar in his speech highlighted various problems faced by the community.

He criticised a local mafia for cutting of mangroves and pledged to continue a campaign to safeguard the rights of the community.

PFF general secretary Saeed Baloch, Tahira Ali, Majeed Motani, Abdul Ghani and others also spoke on the occasion.

They expressed their dissatisfaction over the performance of local PPP legislators who, they claimed, had put the community people in a helpless condition.

The community activists also raised the issue of imposing taxes by the government and in return depriving them of basic facilities.They said that they risked their lives and travelled a long distance to catch fish and sometimes they were caught by the border security forces of the neighbouring country, India.

Some speakers pointed out unavailability of jetties at coastal villages. They argued that there should be smaller landing sites near their villages so that they could move to open sea to catch fish with ration and return by the same way after supplying their catch to the Karachi Fish Harbour market.

The issue of giving licences to deep-sea trawlers which used huge fishing nets to catch commercial fish from the fishing zones where only small boats were allowed to catch fish near creeks and other fishing grounds was also discussed.

They demanded cancellation of the licences issued to deep-sea trawlers, saying that they mostly land their catch to other countries.