Terrorists’ weapons on open sale

What has prompted us to draw your kind attention to the menace of firecrackers and their rampant availability on most streets of the Peshawar metropolitan.

The firecracker business is a lucrative cottage industry, and there is a great demand for its product at weddings and festivals like Shab-e-Barat, Eid etc.

Any attempt to tackle the network of the firecracker industry is not an easy task, but the Sind government has taken some strict measures to curb this menace.

However, with the advent of Shab-e-Barat and Eid, the sale and use of firecrackers witnessed a tremendous increase and the metropolitan, especially Hayatabad turned into a battlefield with the ear-deafening explosions of these firecrackers, which not only deprived the citizens of their rest and sleep but also disturbed the patients, men, women, children and people on Etikaf in the month of Ramadan.

There were even quarrels between the citizens due to this menace.The matter was reported to the local police and it was good on their part to seize some sizeable cache of these crackers from the Karkhano market but the quantity of the nuisance is so huge that it seems difficult for the SHOs to curb it completely.

The recent twin blasts at two foreign eateries in Karachi were carried out by homemade explosives, which were probably made at factories functioning in private homes all over the city.

Terrorists can use the cover of these firecrackers to carry out their activities, by using the more powerful homemade "bombs", which are sold at high prices, but which are quite in demand with the youth because of their impact.

The Sind government issued orders to SHOs to arrest and detain any children and their fathers who "ignite or display or resort to aerial firing".
The Sind Government also has issued orders for the closing down of firecracker factories and punishing the owners as per law.

The government should also use the media to inform the masses of the deadly consequences that these factories pose for their areas.

People must be made conscious that in the case of a fire hazard the narrow streets can become infernos if the electricity wires, faulty gas pipelines and CNG fitted cars catch fire and it will be near impossible for the fire brigade vehicles from entering.

The major source of this menace is the Karkhano Market near Hayatabad where full containers of these crackers are imported and sold in wholesale to the shop-keepers of entire NWFP, some are even exported to rest of the country while others are exported to Afghanistan.

This all is said to be ‘legally’ imported from China through all the channels, check-posts of the Government of Pakistan, the Ministry of Commerce, Land and Sea Customs and several others including the surveillance of the Police Department but remains un-checked and find ways into the hands of children but can easily be available to the terrorists for making bombs and targeting innocent people, vital installations and important personalities.

It is, therefore, requested to use your good offices and force to wipe out the source of these firecrackers in the larger interest of all and sundry.