Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Hearing a suo-motu case, the Supreme Court on Thursday directed the officials concerned to clean up Hujra Shah Muqeem, a small town in Okara, in a month and submit a compliance report.

The town gained prominence after the picture of a funeral procession passing through sewage got the court’s attention.

A three-member Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Ijazul Ahsan heard the case.

The chief justice regretted that the place from where the funeral procession was passing was not fit even for normal passage. He noted that the clothes of those passing through sewage would have been ruined and wondered how they would have offered funeral prayers in dirty clothes.

He asked the chairman of the area’s elected town committee that what was happening in his area. He said dirtiness and pollution was a big threat to the human life.

The municipal committee chairman assured the court that cleanliness conditions were improving and further improvement would be made in two more weeks.

Hujra Shah Muqeem’s member provincial assembly (MPA) also failed to appear before the court. The public lawyer informed the court that the MPA was currently out of the country. Later, the court adjourned the hearing till first week of May.

On last hearing, the chief justice had summoned all the municipal committee members of Hujra Shah Muqeem and the exact location of the picture was also identified.

On March 20, the chief justice had taken suo motu notice of a photograph circulating on social media showing a funeral procession passing through sewage in a narrow alley.

Published in Daily Times, March 30^th 2018.