Foul play: Six of family given ‘poisoned’ sweets

DCO ordered the district administration to seal the shop and collect samples of the sweets

BAHAWALPUR: Six members of a family fell ill on Friday apparently from eating toxic sweets.

A spokesman of the district administration said DCO Muhammad Zafar Iqbal and DPO Zeeshan Asghar were informed that six residents of Nawa Arain village had reported ill at Khanpur THQ Hospital. He said the DCO had visited the hospital and met with the patients.

He said they had told the DCO that they had fallen ill within minutes of eating sweets given to them by one of their relatives. He said Qamar Ahmad had distributed sweets he had purchased from a shop at Zahirpir to celebrate the birth of his son. The spokesman said the family was taken to Khanpur THQ Hospital where doctors called the police. He said the doctors believed that the family had been poisoned.

The spokesman said the DCO had ordered the district administration to seal the shop and collect samples of the sweets. He said the owner of the shop had been arrested and samples had been sent to a laboratory for analysis.

District Health Officer Hassan Khan told newsmen that the patients were being treated at the intensive care unit. He said their condition was stable.

Khanpur DPO Syed Jamshed Ali Shah said one of the owners of the shop was being questioned. “Police are also looking for his business partner,” he said. Other teams looking for the man who had distributed the sweets, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 17^th, 2016.