IT was extremely shocking to read Shafique Soomro’s letter ‘Sukkur library needs furniture’ (April 8), revealing that Mir Masoom Shah Library, the solitary reading facility of a calibre available to more than one million people of the twin cities of Sukkur and Rhori is functioning without adequate furniture. However, it frustrated me even more when the writer had to look towards the provincial education minister to solve the problem of the library’s furniture.

I am in no way absolving the provincial government of its primary responsibility of providing libraries and reading rooms with sufficient books and latest reading material for the community.

Nevertheless, these are the very libraries which assisted in creating, if not thousands, at least hundreds of personalities that have remained on exceptionally significant positions at provincial as well as federal level, be that academia, politics, civil services, professional bodies as well as trade and industries.

My question to those privileged beneficiaries of Mir Masoom Shah Library is, why have they left the very institution unattended and shattered, which helped them to achieve prosperity, prominence and status in society?

In my opinion it is the people of Sukkur and Rohi, especially the well-off community who owe education and status of their families’ to Mir Masoom Shah Library. They are under moral obligation to see that the sole reading facility available in the twin cities continue to provide knowledge to their children effectively and productively.

ISHA MANZOOR KURESHI Karachi