Waters will recede, questions will not. The agony began on a Thursday morning in Karachi when rain poured on the streets dismantling Karachi. Dwellers of Pakistan’s largest city found themselves with little means to contact family, friends and co-workers as a breakdown of mobile data and phone services caused by extended electricity outages added to their woes a day after heavy rains wreaked havoc in Karachi. The rain has been killing more than 50 people only in the provincial capital of Sindh up till now, with all key roads flooded underpasses and streets submerged.
The city once known as the city of lights is now thrashing in the dark with no help whatsoever. The Sindh government really should be explaining to a panic-stricken city why more development work was not completed over the last decade to save them from just such a situation. Yes, the amount of rain has been unprecedented, but Karachi’s infrastructure problems have been around much longer, and they have to be fixed. There is no excuse for what the city has become. Anyone playing politics over this or trying to shift the blame to one or the other is, in reality, playing with the lives of the people of this city.
Will every single entity that has stakes in Karachi come together, quit bickering, and find a way to fix what has been abused and neglected over years? The people of Karachi should not have to feel grateful for not dying each time it rains.
In their obscene quest for self-enrichment the, the political parties and other players in the highest echelons of power have treated Karachi as their personal fiefdom, to loot and plunder at will, rather than a city meant to be the gateway to a progressive, prosperous Pakistan. This must end now; enough is enough. Now it is the time to make the change, whatever it takes. Pave the way for Karachi to truly become the engine for Pakistan’s growth.
MAKHDOOM MOHAMMAD SHOZAB,
Peshawar.