ISLAMABAD, March 29: The Supreme Court asked Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq on Thursday to get instructions from the quarters concerned on a plea moved against the dumping of radioactive waste in Baghal Chur village in Dera Ghazi Khan.

A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez had taken a suo motu notice on the application moved by residents of the area, including Syed Naseer Shah and Lal Mohammad.

The applicants said the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) had set up a facility called Baghal Chur on a leased land of 1,200 acres in 1977 and requested the court to issue an order for cleaning the environment to make it suitable for human beings and other living beings in the village.

The attorney general was asked to seek instructions from the quarters concerned when a PAEC’s representative failed to satisfy the court, although the chief justice himself recalledthat the project appeared to be abandoned in 2001. The case will be taken up again sometime in May.

The AG said the issue was a bit sensitive, but said some environmental impact tests conducted in the area found the radiation level within normal limits.

Advocate Sardar Asmatullah, the counsel for the applicants, said the underground mines where nuclear wastes were dumped had been established at a distance of one kilometre from the populous locality. Over six people had died of cancer caused by contaminated air in recent years, he added.

The residents alleged that a large number of inhabitants were suffering from breathing problems because of contamination caused by the facility, while several goats, sheep and other cattle heads had died due to noxious air in the surroundings.

Cows and bulls also developed deformities because of eating polluted grass and shrubs and drinking water from the contaminated lake. The facility was also not properly fenced, they added.

The counsel alleged that the condition of mines posed serious danger to human life and animals.

“Mines are abandoned openly without lifting fossil material,” the application alleged and said the water diluted with the fossil material fell in the lake and in nearby stream which also flew in surrounding areas of Dera Ghazi Khan.

It said the poisonous material in plastic drums was brought from different parts and stored in residential barracks which caused stinging noxious smell, posing serious hazards to life, grass, trees and crops. “The poisonous scrap of a huge size is brought from elsewhere and dumped in the abandoned mines without taking precaution and preventive measures,” the application said.