KARACHI: National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH) on Friday demanded strict enforcement of the environmental safety laws in industrial units in Karachi so as to avoid repetition of the recent grave tragedy in District Keamari claiming the lives of several innocent persons due to toxic emissions from factories nearby residential areas.
In a statement, NFEH President Naeem Qureshi urged the Sindh Chief Minister and Environment Minister to make sure that operators of the unchecked factories in District Keamari and officials responsible for the fatal tragedy should be imprisoned for their criminal negligence.
“An exemplary penal action should be taken against all those responsible for the loss of so many lives due to factories creating a serious environmental hazard for the residents of the underprivileged area in Karachi so that next time nobody should show carelessness in keeping in check the harmful industrial operations that could prove fatal,” said Qureshi.
He said the recent episode had proved that the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency, Industries, and Labour Departments, and other authorities hadn’t been duly discharging their vital responsibilities to ensure public safety.
The NFEH President demanded that officials of the relevant agencies and departments of the provincial government and district administration should be taken to task for the sheer show of negligence in this case. “At the same time criminal cases should be filed against the operators of the factories whose harmful emissions proved fatal for many people in the nearby area,” he said.
He urged the relevant authorities to ensure that inspection should immediately be ordered to check the emission status of other industrial units in the city to ensure public safety. “The Sindh Chief Minister should treat this sorrowful episode as a test case and order adoption of all the needful corrective measures to make sure that unchecked industrial operations in Karachi shouldn’t prove fatal again for any innocent citizen,” he said.
At the same time factory owners while sensing their solemn moral and legal obligations should also make sure that emissions from their industrial units shouldn’t compromise the health of any person in the surroundings, he added. He said the Federal Health Minister, Abdul Qadir Patel, who is a native of the area should also immediately come into action and take needful measures to protect health and wellbeing of the residents of affected localities.