Relatives demand justice as Keenjhar Lake victims laid to rest

Ten people who drowned to death at Keenjhar Lake were laid to rest in Karachi on Tuesday. Their funeral prayers were offered at the Fauji Ground in Mehmoodabad, and they were laid to rest at the Fauji graveyard. A large number of people, including their family members, relatives and friends, attended the funeral prayers.

The participants shouted slogans over the incident and demanded of the higher authorities to take stern action against those who, they said, were responsible for the tragedy. Ten picnickers, mostly women and teenage girls, drowned, but three other members of the family were rescued after their boat capsized near the grave of Noori in Keenjhar Lake near Thatta on Monday.

Rescue workers reached the scene and started a rescue operation. Pakistan Navy teams were also called to help the civil administration to search the survivors. The rescuers were able to pull out 10 bodies from the deep water of the lake.

Senior government officials, including Thatta Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Usman Tanveer and the SSP, arrived to monitor the rescue operation. “Ten people lost their lives and three others were rescued by rescue teams,” confirmed the deputy commissioner. The casualties were transported to the Civil Hospital Thatta for autopsies. Police have arrested sailor Abdul Jabbar on a charge of overloading the boat.

The 10 bodies were later brought to a morgue in Korangi where a large number of family members, neighbours, relatives and friends of the victims gathered and staged a protest. A minor violent incident was also reported when some people from the crowd attempted to film the bodies at the morgue.

“A total of 28 people from a family had gone to the lake on a picnic, and of them 13 people were on the boat that capsized,” said relatives. “We were told that the boat capsized due to overloading. If this is so, where were the authorities concerned and who allowed them to overload?”

The victims were identified as 15-year-old Saima, daughter of Asif; Uzma, 35; Rubina, 40, wife of Usman Ghani; her three daughters Nimra, 10, Eeman, 11, and Urooj, 19; 16-year-old Shanza, daughter of Yousuf; and her twin sister, Alisha; their elder sister, Sadia, 21; and their mother, Sabiha, 40.

Drowning incidents are common at beaches in Karachi and its surroundings. Earlier on Sunday, two siblings drowned while on a picnic on the Hawkesbay beach, while a young boy also drowned while bathing on the Sandspit beach on Sunday. Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has expressed grief over the loss of life and taken serious notice of the Keenjhar Lake incident.