Two workers die of burn injuries

Police have registered a case against factory owner

SHEIKHUPURA:

Two workers died of burn injuries in a paper factory near Kharianwala while two others sustained serious injuries, police said.

They said the workers had been cleaning up the pulp when they fell unconscious due to suffocation.

Twenty-seven-year old Muhammad Imran, a resident of Balharkay, died while he was being shifted to the district hospital.

Muhammad Asif, a resident of Kharianwala, died at the Mayo Hospital in Lahore.

Bhikhi Police Station has registered a case against the owner, contractor and a manager of the factory on the application filed by the heirs of the deceased laborer Muhammad Imran.

Meanwhile, the Director of Labour, Imran Haider Tipu, said that action would be taken against the factory management according to the law while the heirs of the deceased would be paid a compensation of Rs1.1 million each.

In May last year a labourer was burnt to death in a blaze that erupted at a tailor’s shop in Basti Pathanwala in Lodhran.

Clothes worth thousands of rupees were burnt to ashes while Rescue 1122 workers cut the shutter of the shop to retrieve the body of the labourer.

Police identified the deceased as 22-year-old Javed Mukhtiar, a resident of Basti Kondi Kotana. The deceased was reportedly asleep in the shop when the fire broke out, leaving him dead on the International Labour Day.

Locals reported the incident to Rescue 1122. The shutter of the shop was closed and the rescue team had to cut it and take the labourer out, but he had died by then.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 4^th, 2022.