MIRPURKHAS, June 9: Several villagers held a demonstration in the district nazim's office premises on Tuesday to protest against delay in action against the civil surgeon following death of a villager due to non-availability of anti-snake vaccine.

The protesters were raising slogans against civil surgeon Dr Saleem Raza Memon of the Mirpurkhas Civil Hospital. Meanwhile, several union council nazims arrived there and assured them that action would be taken in the matter.

The protesters told this correspondent that snake-bite victim Essardas died in the hospital owing to non-availability of the vaccine, yet the district government did not take any action against Dr Memon, who was guilty of negligence.

They demanded that the provincial and district governments should ensure the arrest of the civil surgeon. The EDO (health) had issued show cause notices to the civil surgeon as well as Dr Ayaz Khoso and Dr Ghulam Jilani of the casualty ward while Dr Moosa Leghari was suspended.

SAB: The Sindh Abadgar Board, district chapter, has accused irrigation officials of taking bribes from influential landlords for supplying water to them.

In a meeting held here, the participants demanded that FIRs should be registered against corrupt irrigation officials. It described water shortage as artificial and alleged that the water was being stolen with the connivance of irrigation officials.