KARACHI: People suffer as petrol pumps kept closed
Having exhausted fuel in their respective vehicles, many people were seen pushing their vehicles on late Wednesday night and Thursday.
At many places, petrol was being sold in “black” in litre plastic bottles charging rupees 10 to 20 over the official rate. Some petrol stations were opened for a brief interval in Clifton and Defence areas where long queues of vehicles were witnessed. Those petrol stations, which opened up on Thursday, closed their operations before the evening in view of the scheduled funeral after Maghrib prayers.
The owners of the CNG installed vehicles were also forced to look for petrol as CNG terminals at the few functional stations were not operative.
Due to the closure of the petrol stations and uncertain situation in the city, public transports also remained off the roads forcing people to stay indoors. Since Tuesday, three petrol stations were set on fire by angry mob along with several vehicles.
Owners of some petrol stations blamed the police for forcing them to close down. They said that they could operate if a little security cover was provided to them.
However, a senior police official requesting anonymity said that we could not take risk by allowing petrol stations to open up in this volatile situation.
However, the police sources said that the concept of the closure of petrol stations was that the police wanted minimum attendance of people in the funeral prayers of the leadership of the Sunni Tehrik at Eidgah on Thursday.
They said that two days were enough for vehicles to run out of fuel and many people could not be able to attend the funeral. Low attendance of people on the occasion would help police to easily handle the law and order situation, the sources claimed.
On the other side, people said that the police’s step to close down forcibly petrol stations showed that the ‘city had been made hostage by the police’ and it was a ‘police state’ where the provincial and the city governments were helpless in enforcing their writ.
The police action to close down petrol stations has badly affected the mobility of patients to various city clinics and hospitals.
According to a nephrologist, there were hundreds of patients in the city, who were on dialysis. They had to reach hospitals for their respective dialysis session through private cars and most of them used taxis.
Due to the closure of petrol stations, most of the taxis were off roads and cars had run out of fuel.
If they missed a dialysis session on time, they could face complications and subsequent deaths, the doctors were of the view.
Besides, a doctor at a hospital said that patients in the out-patient department (OPD) turned up in a very small number as compared to usual days because of want of mobility in the city. Most of the small clinics in various localities remained closed.
SINDH PA: The plight of commuters and hardships of people due to the non-availability of fuel from petrol pumps also echoed in the Sindh Assembly on Thursday, when two members of the House Shazia Atta Mohammad Marri and Rafique Engineer raised the issue while stressing the need for discussion on adjournment motions pertaining to the Nishtar Park tragedy.
Ms Marri expressed sorrow over the loss of precious lives in the Faizan-i-Madina and Nishtar Park incidents.
She brought into attention the problem of non-availability of fuel from petrol pumps as they were closed. She requested the speaker to ask the authorities to make arrangements for the availability of petrol to the people.
Ms Marri said that for want of fuel people who wanted to pay visits to the injured in hospitals and offer condolences to the bereaved families were under tremendous stress.
Rafique Engineer said that Ms Marri had rightly pointed out the agony of the people who were facing hardships due to the closure of petrol pumps. He said when on Thursday some of the petrol pumps open their businesses to ease the situation, the police forced them to close their pumps.