National Assembly's Standing Committee on Maritime Affairs on Wednesday asked for a judicial inquiry on the leakage of poisonous gas from shipment at the Keamari dockyard, Karachi.
On the incident of leaked gas on 16th February, 2020 in the vicinity of Karachi Port Trust (KPT), the Minister Syed Ali Haider Zaidi informed the committee that reports from various sources have been received on the suspicious deaths of at least 10 people in the surrounding areas of KPT, and it indicates that it must have been the cause of a leaked gas happened due to a chemical reaction in an empty tanker. The minister categorically stated that the deaths could not have been attributed to the soya-been shipment as reported by some media outlets.
He said that Dr Attaur Rehman also claimed during a media interview that death were due to spread of soya-been dust, which was not correct, adding that the said ship arrived at the port from US after properly security clearance. No staff working at ship was affected and he did not find any suspicious toxic smell during his visit to ship. He alleged that chaos was spread deliberately regarding the ship.
The Members of the Committee want to have a judicial inquiry into this matter. The Chairman Standing Committee Mir Ali Khan Magsi opined that speculation should not be done and we should wait for the final report by the Naval Biological Chemical Department on this matter.
Minister for Maritime Affairs apprised the committee that the source of toxic gas was still unknown. However, he said the toxic gas might have spread from the empty tanks which were under use of affected people for storage of petrol and chemical. If these tanks were not kept clean after usage, they could produce poisonous gas. He said that the government had tasked navy's organization to find out the causes of toxic gas and they also visited the sites and also inspected basement of custom house. They also collected air quality samples from the site. "Soon after the incident, we found strange smell near custom house and port was operational, which the media reports claimed were shut down," he said. The minister said that the cause of deaths in the past incidents were result of toxic hydrogen sulfate.
The federal government came to know on February 17 that six people lost their lives in the incidents and custom house was closed. Earlier on Sunday evening first patient came to hospital for medical treatment. Later, Minister for Maritime Affairs and Member Committee Abdul Qadir Patel exchanged harsh words over leakage of poisonous gas in Kemari Area. Abdul Qadir alleged that the federal government failed to reach any conclusion of sources of toxic gas. He said people of his constituency were asking questions about who was responsible for the death of innocent people in the area. He further claimed that the source of toxic gas was the sea. He maintained that 90 percent of the people in Kemari were employees of the Port Trust and there was strict security there. People witnessed smoke coming out of a 70,000 ton soy-been ship in the sea and safety officials did not switch off the safety nozzle, he argued. He demanded the minister to accept the negligence of the Maritime Ministry. He said the government was hiding the death of people by saying that deaths were result of toxic alcohol.
Ali Haider Zaidi said that investigating agencies should find out the causes of leakage of toxic gas and death of innocent people. He said that the committee should not blame federal government and they should rather ask Chief Minister Sindh. Ali Zaidi criticized the silence of Mayor Karachi on the incident and remarked that he might be busy somewhere else.
The committee appreciated the efforts of the Armed Forces especially the Air Force in thwarting the unwarranted and uncalled for aggression of the Indian Air Force on 27th February, 2019. The committee felicitated the nation and the forces on this day.
The committee also condemned in the strongest words the killing of Muslims in India in the past couple of days. The committee also asked the international community to take notice of these killings. Prayers were offered for the Muslims killed in India and the deceased of the 16th February, 2020 incident of leaked gas in Karachi.
The bills "The Port Qasim Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2019" and "The Gwadar Port Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2019" were deferred for the next meeting. The committee scrutinized the budgetary proposals relating to the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs for the financial year 2020-2021 and recommended it to be approved.
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