Cursed site? Gujjar nullah claims life of another child

Seven-year-old boy drowns while collecting bottles at nullah's bank

KARACHI: An inconsolable Amanullah, sitting on the bank of Gujjar nullah, could not stop crying on Saturday morning. It was no less than doomsday for him as his seven-year-old son, Muhammad Rehan, had drowned in the same nullah a day before.

Five days ago, Amanullah and his wife had gone to Rajanpur, Punjab, for getting their computerised national identity cards. They had left their six children with their grandparents in Karachi so that they would not miss their school. "It was the first time that I did not take my children with me to Punjab," said Amanullah as he wept.



After Rehan came back from school on Friday at around 11:30am, he quickly devoured a meal cooked by his grandmother and went to play by the side of the nullah. According to Rehan's maternal uncle, Abdul Hameed, the children of the impoverished locality at the bank of the river usually collect bottles and other material from the garbage that gathers on its bank and sell it to the junk-dealers to buy snacks or toys. Hameed recalled how Rehan lost his control and fell in the nullah while trying to grab the bottle at the bank of the nullah. He said that the children of the locality are so poor that they risk their lives to collect garbage from the nullah bank just to buy some food items.

Hameed claimed that cases of children drowning in the Gujjar nullah occur every other month but the government does nothing about it. "They should at least construct a wall at the bank of the nullah," he added.

Referring to the latest drowning incident, Hameed said that no government machinery was brought to the site after Rehan fell in the nullah, until 3pm. He said that the residents of the locality themselves dived into the nullah to search for the boy but failed. "These government machineries and divers are all for show and just to woo the media," claimed Hameed, adding that not a single body of anyone who drowned in the nullah was ever recovered.



Government's stance

Meanwhile, North Nazimabad assistant commissioner Shaikh Muhammad Rafique, while visiting the site of the incident, said they received the news about the child at around 2pm on Friday. He said that their staff, along with the excavator, reached the spot at 3pm, while Pakistan Navy's divers also arrived on the spot on Saturday to search for the boy.

According to Rafique, the entire locality was encroached upon, against which they are already carrying out an operation. Primarily, he said, it is the responsibility of the parents to look after their children. Government cannot monitor every child playing at the banks of the nullahs, he added.

The banks of the Gujjar nullah have already been cleared of houses built on encroachments, he said. Rafique added that in the next step, they will construct 20-metre-wide roads on both sides of the Gujjar nullah, which will control such incidents.



Referring to the encroachments, Hameed said that the people have been living around the bank of the nullah for the last 40 years. He said that the government should never have let the people set up houses near the nullah. "Now since we are here, we should be treated like humans," he said, adding that their children keep drowning in the nullahs and no one cares.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 20^th, 2016.