Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani people from Karachi to Khyber are mourning over the ill-fated incident took place in Lahore last week that claimed dozen of innocent lives but even then it proves too little for capital city managers to put in place the security arrangements for capital’s prominent parks.

There are 174 parks in the federal capital out of which seven are major sub-urban like the Rose and Jasmine Garden and the Lake View Park, Fatima Jinnah Park and Murgazar Park.

These parks were established in different locations of the federal capital for the inhabitants of capital to spend their leisure time. Unfortunately, despite tall claims by the government, the condition of these parks is miserable.

During the detailed survey, it has been witnessed that most of capital parks including recreational parks are without boundary walls and proper lightning system. Particularly, the parks such Fatima Jinnah Park, Rose and Jasmine Garden, Murgahzar Park and Lake View Park have poor security measures.

The popular recreational spot of the federal capital are lacking security for the visitors, as the park has no boundary wall and security guards.

The visitors including families complained about the lack of security in park since there is no boundary wall and anyone can come into the park from any side. The grills, which were erected to secure these parks, have badly broken through which criminals could easily enter into the premises of parks.

Fatima Jinnah Park, which is almost occupied by one sector land, considers to be one of the largest parks where no security arrangements has been made for the visitors. The park is without boundary wall and the iron grills that were installed decade ago to prevent unfortunate incidents had badly broken, which are easily accessible for the unwanted persons.

It has also been observed that most of the time the visitors in haste cross these broken grills to enter the park premises by ignoring the designated entry gates.

The Fatima Jinnah Park has four entry gates and one of them is located opposite to F10 Markaz and the other gates cover all three sides of parks. These gates connect almost four residential sectors of the federal capital. In these four entry gates, only a gatekeeper could be seen collecting entry free.

While talking to Daily times, a frequent visitor of Fatima Jinnah Park Faisal Malik complained that the city managers are charging from the visitors at their own will and not ready to spend single penny for the betterment of park and enhancement of security measures.

He said that the iron grilled of park have broken down the unwanted persons could be seen crossing these broken grills in the morning time. It seems that the city managers have left the citizen at the mercy of criminals, he added.

He said that the park has no light system adding that dozens of burgling cases have been registered in recent years owing to absence of proper lights.

He further said that most of the visitors jogging after sunset said that the number of visitors have been reduced in recent years following such incidents adding that the city managers should fulfill their responsibility by securing public parks to prevent attacks like Lahore carnage.

A gatekeeper on the basis of anonymity told Daily Times that the number of regular visitors in Fatima Jinnah Park has been reduced drastically especially the number of family visitors has also been witnessed low at week end.

He said that the sense of insecurity mainly contributed to the reduction of visitors in the parks of capital adding that Rose and Jasmine Garden is also lacking the facility of security for the visitors, as the park has no boundary wall and security guard.

The visitors including families and females in the premises complained about the lack of security in park since there is no boundary wall and any one can come inside the park from various entrances.

A visitor Shahid Ajmal while talking to Daily Times said that mostly students of colleges and schools are seen in uniform during their study time roaming in groups and pass obscene remarks on females while on complaint of visitors, the security in-charge of Capital Development Authority (CDA) said that they have been provided only two security guards who cannot look after the whole park. Despite repeated attempts, CDA spokesperson Ramzan Sajid could not be contacted for the comments on issue.