ISLAMABAD, March 9: A hefty compensation has been announced for the victims of Abbas Town blast while the promises made to Hazaras remain empty as their cheques have also bounced.

This expression of dual standards of the government has compelled one person to highlight the issue in the Islamabad High Court (IHC).

Maulvi Iqbal Haider requested the court to direct the federal government to provide compensation to the desperate families on equal basis.

He cited federation of Pakistan, ministry of interior, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) as respondents.Iqbal Haider in his petition maintained that the estimated losses in Hazara and Abbas Town came to Rs19.6 billion. The PPP government, under pressure of the Supreme Court, has paid Rs1 billion to the affected families of Abbas town while Rs20 million cheques issued in favour of Hazaras  had been dishonoured.

“This is discrimination and the compensation should be on equal basis,” Haider said.

He said that the government had miserably failed in protecting the life and property of its citizens. It could not be absolved of the responsibility as its negligence caused losses, he added.

The petitioner requested the court to direct the government to either pay the compensation to the affected families or notify it officially so that the caretaker government could be able to pay to the affected families.

Petitioner has prayed to the court that if the respondents failed to pay them, the Election Commission might be directed to disqualify them from contesting the upcoming general elections.

An IHC bench would hear the petition on March 11.

Syed Nasir Shah, a PPP MNA belonging to Hazara tribe told Dawn that dishonoring of cheques added to the community’s miseries.

The real problem for the Hazaras is sense of insecurity and if someone wanted to do something good for the terrorism affected community he should bring peace to the Hazara’s tribe, he added.

Federal minister for information and broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira when approached said that the government did his best to settle the issues of Hazara community.

As far as the matter of compensation is concerned, the federal government had transferred the funds to the provincial governments of Balochistan and Sindh, he said.

There would be some technical issues which caused dishonoring of the cheques to the affected families, he added.

He, however, assured that all the affected families would surely get what the government had promised to them.

Regarding uneven compensation to the affected families of Abbas Town and Hazara blasts, Mr Kaira said that federal government had treated all of them equally.

He, however, said that there was a possibility that the Sindh government might have added added from its own resources to the amount of compensation package for the Abbas Town blast victims.