By Staff Reporter
KARACHI: At least 11 people, including women and children, were killed and several others injured in a deadly stampede during the distribution of food aid in Karachi on Friday, officials said.
Police Surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed said 11 bodies, eight women and three boys, had been brought to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital and Civil Hospital.
Police said the incident happened at the FK Dyeing Company, which had invited the families of its employees for distribution of Zakat.
Muhammad Mughees Hashmi, area Superintendent of Police (SP) said hundreds of people, present outside the factory, panicked and started pushing each other to collect food. Some of them fell into a nearby drain.
“Two children and two women fell in a drain when its wall collapsed due to the rush of the people,” Hashmi told journalists.
Hashmi said the factory owner who organised the food distribution centre had not alerted police about the plan. He said local police were unaware of the distribution, otherwise they might have deployed forces.
Residents said a wall also collapsed near the drain, injuring and killing people amid the stampede.
A provincial minister said seven people had been arrested, all of them employees of the factory on charges of negligence.
With the latest incident in Karachi, the death toll from stampedes across free food centres across the country has risen to at least 22.
The stampede is the deadliest at Ramazan food distribution points since the start of the month last week.
The free food distribution initiative was launched by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif last week at a time when the country is in the midst of a severe economic crisis.
Large crowds of people have been gathering at distribution centres since the government launched an initiative last week to give free flour to low-income families during Ramadan to ease the impact of record-breaking inflation and soaring poverty.
Friday’s incident comes a day after authorities ordered deployment of additional police at the Ramadan food distribution centres to avoid dangerous overcrowding.
Meanwhile, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said it was “deeply concerned by the mismanagement causing stampedes at wheat flour distribution centres set up by the government”.
The commission termed the incident in Karachi to be “particularly alarming”. “This situation is adding insult to injury for the marginalised people of Pakistan who are braving the economic injustice perpetuated by the elites who dominate the state,” HRCP said in a statement, calling on the government to improve the distribution system.
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