Troubled waters:Three children swept away by canal currents

Rescue-1122 team found bodies of two children.

FAISALABAD:

Three children drowned in Rakh Branch Canal in Madina Town on Monday. Rescue-1122 officials found the bodies of two children and were looking for the third child.

Madina Town police said 12-year-old Yaseen Shakeel, a resident of Street 7, Dastagir Colony, his 10-year-old brother Mobeen Shakeel and their friend Khizar Saeed, 12, went to swim in the canal on Monday morning. The children dived into the canal near the Toyota Showroom near Pipanwala Bridge and were swept away by the current.

When other children at the canal realised that the three had been swept away, they raised alarm. Several passersby and people in the area rushed to the scene and informed Rescue-1122.

Muhammad Anwar, a shopkeeper, told The Express Tribune that he heard the other children shouting for help. “Several shopkeepers closed their shops and ran towards the canal. The children there told us what had happened. We tried looking for them but could not find them.”

Anwar said that they called up Rescue-1122 and the local police immediately. He said the rescue personnel arrived in 15 minutes and started looking for the children. “The local police arrived at least an hour after the incident,” he said.

Anwar said the Rescue-1122 team managed to find the bodies of Yaseen Shakeel and Khizar Saeed but Mobeen’s body was still missing.

Ghulam Fareed, another shopkeeper, said a lot of children bathed in the canal daily. “We informed the local administration and Madina Town police that the children frequented the canal despite a ban on bathing in canal water but no one paid any heed.”

A spokesperson from the district coordination office told The Express Tribune that bathing in the canal had been banned under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code but the police had not ensured implementation of the ban. He said those responsible would be taken to task. “Parents should strictly forbid their children from bathing in the canal as well. We must work together to ensure that this never happens again.”The Madina Town SHO said the police had taken the bodies into custody and sent them to a mortuary for autopsy.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 20^th, 2014.