Families of deceased cops await Covid compensation

KARACHI:

Officials and personnel of Sindh Police, who died due to coronavirus, have not yet been given the title of 'martyrs' yet as promised by the government of Sindh last year. The families of at least 26 officials and personnel of Sindh Police, who succumbed to the virus, await the compensation announced by the government for frontline workers.

Police sources told The Express Tribune that the Sindh government had only verbally made the announcement and no notification was issued as per the prevailing terms and conditions.

They claimed that the Sindh Police has not received any written orders under which the deceased police officials can be declared martyrs.

The police department has, however, paid Rs500,000 to the family of each of the deceased cops, added the sources.

Daily fatalities drop as many as seven more patients of coronavirus disease died overnight lifting the death toll to 5,243 while 580 new cases emerged when 12,825 tests were conducted in Sindh. On Saturday 16 fatalities were reported, while 19 died on Friday.

A statement issued on Sunday said that currently 23,478 patients were under treatment, of them 22,755 were in home isolation, 703 at different hospitals & 20 patients in Isolation Centres.

He added that the condition of 644 patients was stated to be critical, including 57 shifted to ventilators.

According to the statement, out of 580 new cases, 355 have been detected from Karachi.

Explaining the district-wise statistics, he added that Karachi East 130, Karachi Central 68, Karachi South 64, Korangi 47, Karachi West & Hyderabad 25 each, Malir 21, JamShoro 17, Kashmore 17, Matiari 16, Badin 15, Umarkot 14, Sujawal and Tando Allahyar 12 each, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar and Nawabshah 10 each, Noushero Feroz and Qambar-Shahdadkot nine each, Dadu, Khairpur and Tharparkar eight each, Sukkur and Jacobabad five each, Larkano and Ghotki two each and Shikarpur one new covid-19 cases reported.