While hordes of men and women walked in and out of the hospital and morgue to identify their loved ones, there were many for whom no one had even turned up. PHOTO: ONLINE
KARACHI:
Families stood in a line outside Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) waiting for their turn to go inside and give blood samples which would help identify their loved one from the 60 bodies that lay in the hospital’s morgue on Sunday morning.
“My cousin called me around 10pm last night and said that he was leaving for Shikarpur,” said a man waiting to go inside. “I don’t know if he’s alive or if he did board this bus. I still don’t know.” He added that they weren’t from Karachi and could not find any information about his cousin anywhere.
The uncle of 22-year-old Pehlwan said that he was the sole breadwinner of the family. “He used to make around Rs10,000 per month working as a labourer in Umer Goth,” said the relative. “He used to visit the family every three months. They are still waiting for him.”
Having lost their 70-year-old father, Muhammad Ali, in the fatal accident on Saturday night, a family of seven brothers sat outside JPMC grieving together.
The eldest brother said that their father used to visit Shikarpur every once in a while. “I have given a blood sample to speed up the identification process,” he said while talking to The Express Tribune. “They are saying they will let us know in a week. This wasn’t the first time our father went to Shikarpur by road. That night took the bus after finishing up work around 10pm.”
The brother of 24-year-old Sajjad, said that he was making one of his regular trips to Ranipur to meet his wife and two children. “He got married four years ago at a very early age,” he said. “We came to work in Karachi and found menial labour jobs on construction sites.”
While hordes of men and women walked in and out of the hospital and morgue to identify their loved ones, there were many for whom no one had even turned up.
Ejaz from the Edhi center said that according to procedure the bodies will be kept for a week and if no one comes to claim them, they will be buried.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 12th, 2015.
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