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space, inhabitants are forced to start cooking fires in close proximity of the
huts, which are often covered in plastics to make them water-proof. In
December, a pregnant woman was burnt to death and two others suffered
serious burn injuries after a fire erupted in a slum settlement in Korangi area of
Karachi. In another fire that erupted in a slum settlement of Karachi in May,
115 huts were gutted and two persons were injured.
Graveyards
Acute shortage of burial space remained a major issue in cities across the
country where burial was the only option for the deceased. The problem was
not so much shortage of land but a lack of town planning. Since the number
of individuals passing away does not vary much from year to year it should
not be too difficult to project burial space need for the next 25 years or so.
Existing graveyard often had no space left for new graves and encroachment
made matters worse.
In order for the private housing societies to get their plans approved by
the official authorities it was mandatory to reserve a specific portion of land
for graveyards. However, after the plans were approved, private societies
often converted land reserved for graveyards into more plots for housing.
Burying the dead became a costly endeavour even when land was available.
A bricked grave cost up to Rs 4,500 while a mud grave cost Rs 1,500 in a
country where almost 30 percent of the population lives below the poverty
line. The famous Miani Sahib graveyard in Lahore no longer had much space
for burying the dead and the administrators there banned the reservation of
graves for that reason. It was decided almost three years ago that a second
section of the graveyard would be developed to overcome space shortage.
However, the only progress made so far was identification of the site. The
Lahore City District Government had not managed to purchase that land until
the end of the year.
Floods and internal armed conflict
Southern Pakistan suffered from floods for the third year in a row. The
number of the people affected was in millions. The floods also damaged or
destroyed at least 275,720 houses in 2012 alone. In a state where the nearly 8
million housing unit shortage grew by another 300,000 every year, replacing
the tens of thousands of houses destroyed by natural disasters was a mammoth
task.
Besides recurring natural disasters, Pakistan was plagued by internal armed
conflicts between the security forces and extremist militants. While military
operations in the militancy-hit parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa managed to rid
those parts of militants’ influence, problems remained in FATA. Throughout
2012, militants continued to operate in large parts of FATA with impunity.
They not only terrorised the local population, but also destroyed important
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State of Human Rights in 2012