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Pak lawmaker points to Chandrayaan-3 to highlight lack of amenities in Karachi: ‘India on moon…’
MQM-P's Syed Mustafa Kamal said that on the one hand, open gutters were taking children's lives in Karachi, while on the other, India was already on the moon.
Syed Mustafa Kamal, a lawmaker from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) party, on Wednesday highlighted the lack of amenities in Karachi by making comparisons with India, saying that on the one hand, open gutters were taking children's lives in his country's largest city, while on the other, India had already successfully executed a lunar mission, an obvious reference to Chandrayaan-3.
“Today, when the world is going to the moon, our children are dying by falling into gutters in Karachi. On our TV screens, we see the news that India landed on the moon, and after just two seconds, there is news that a child died in an open gutter in Karachi,” Kamal said in his address to the Parliament.
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The MQM-P member also spoke about the lack of fresh water in the city, home to nearly 20.3 million (2.3 crore) people.
“Karachi is the revenue engine of Pakistan. The two seaports operational in Pakistan since its inception, are both here. It is the gateway to the entire country. For 15 years, Karachi did not get much fresh water. Whatever water came, that too was hoarded by the tanker mafia,” Kamal stated.
Citing a report, he further mentioned that as many as 70 lakh children in the Sindh province, of which Karachi is the Capital, were not going to school, and nationally, that number stood at 2.6 crore.
“We have total 48,000 schools, but a new report says that out of these, 11,000 are 'ghost schools.' As many as 70 lakh children in Sindh and 2.62 crore in the country, are not going to school. That should not let our leaders sleep,” he said.
Syed Mustafa Kamal's remarks come days after senior Pakistani politician Maulana Fazlur Rehman, pointed to economic disparities between India and Pakistan, saying that “India is dreaming of becoming a superpower, and we are begging to avoid bankruptcy.”
(With ANI inputs)
