| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan-Pak-India |
| Quake survivors baton-charged |
| 2005-11-12 |
| MUZAFFARABAD: The police baton-charged around 250 earthquake survivors in Pakistani Kashmir who were protesting against orders to vacate a squalid makeshift camp on Friday, the police chief said. A number of the demonstrators were arrested as they marched through the centre of the regional capital Muzaffarabad, said Shahid Hassan, Azad Kashmir police chief. âThey were ordered to leave the temporary camp because it was set up in the middle of the city and it did not have any proper sanitation or waste disposal facilities,â Hassan said. The protest comes as aid officials struggle to contain an outbreak of acute diarrhoea at Muzaffarabadâs main tent camp â in the sports ground of the cityâs university â and a number of other spontaneous settlements. âWe were shifting them to a proper camp with better living conditions but they did not agree,â police chief Hassan added. âAround 250 people protested, and police, in order to disperse them, used a mild baton charge. They arrested a few people and dispersed the rest of the crowd,â he added. They were stopped because they were heading towards a âsensitive areaâ where a US military hospital for quake victims was located, said Tahir Qureshi, the deputy police chief. âThey were blocking traffic and they were told many times to behave, then the police officers had to resort to a baton charge to disperse them,â Qureshi added. âThe camp where they are living has no sanitary facilities, no latrines and there was a danger of disease.â |
| Posted by:Fred |