[Pak Daily Times] The Punjab government has called an inquiry report regarding a news item published in Italian newspaper Awenire in which the paper alleged that a Pakistani politician had ordered the diversion of floodwaters into a Christian village, killing at least 15 people, in an attempt to save his personal property.
The Punjab government has called this report after receiving a circular issued by the Interior Ministry, in which it was stated that a local politician of Muzaffargarh, Member National Assembly (MNA) Jamshed Dasti, had ordered the diversion of floodwaters into a Christian village, killing at least 15 people, in an attempt to save his personal property. Due to this act, the Christian locality (Khokharabad) was completely flooded, causing damage to crops and leaving 337 homeless. A local politician ordered the building of a dam to divert the floodwater through the village to save some of his own property. The foreign media reported that the Khokharabad inhabitants were not notified and therefore were unable to escape before their village was swept away.
One of the village leaders, Taj Masih, said, "Our village was flooded on purpose. Dasti, just to save his own land, preferred to leave 377 people without homes or harvest, our only source of livelihood. Now we have nothing." Local authorities are denying responsibility for the decision to erect the dam. |