Swept away: Four of a family drown in Indus River

A fifth was rescued while the search continues for the deceased.

TORGHAR: Four of a family, including three children, drowned in Indus River, shared the police and family on Friday.

A fourth child, who also fell in, was rescued and the body of his grandmother was recovered while the search for the other three continues.

Dilroz Khan, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s president of Kandar tehsil, Torghar district, said his mother Mahnoor Bibi, 73, was waiting at a small hillock on the bank in Kehror village to take the boat to Kandar tehsil.

As the boat approached the elderly woman and the children, a sudden rush of water submerged the hillock, taking with it the woman and her grandchildren, said Dilroz, quoting eyewitnesses.

Villagers who saw the incident jumped into the water and rescued two-and-a-half-year-old Tayab Roz Khan but his three sisters and their grandmother drowned.

According to Zahid Khan, the district coordinator of HRCP, divers succeeded in fishing out the remains of Mahnoor Bibi but failed to recover the bodies of ten-year-old Shahida Bibi, six-year-old Nagina Bibi and three-year-old Najeeba Bibi.

Since there is no bridge over the river to connect the local population of Torghar, villagers use boats as a staple mode of transportation. Zahid claimed the provincial government had been requested several times to install a suspension bridge but the rulers’ lack of attention towards the region has caused many lives to be lost. “The government must consider the people of Torghar as citizens equal to any others in the country and provide them with facilities as dictated by the Constitution.”

According to a local member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), the incident was a result of no proper infrastructure to cross the river.

The rescue operation was in full swing till the filing of this report.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2014.