Recovering their brothers’ bodies

Brothers of 2 killed in Karachi plane crash wait for bodies to be handed over.

DERA GHAZI KHAN/MULTAN: Two men from southern Punjab were among those killed in the Karachi plane crash on Friday.

According to locals, 40-year-old chemical engineer Muhammad Tahir from Multan and DG Khan’s Muhammad Sajid were among the 21 people who were killed in the recent chartered plane crash near the Karachi airport.

Muhammad Tahir was a father of three children and belonged to Multan’s Shamsabad area. Muhammad Tahir’s father Abdul Khaliq, brother Taimur and Tariq told reporters that Tahir had been working for a local company for the past five years. “He used to go to work for 14 days and the next fornight, he used to spend at home,” his father said. Tahir’s family said that he left for Karachi one day before the incident. Before joining the chemical factory Muhammad Tahir worked for a fertilser factory and mill in Faisalabad. One of his brothers, Saad, has left for Karachi to recover his body. The family has been told that his body will be handed over for burial after a DNA test.

Dera Ghazi Khan resident engineer Sajid Rafiq had gone to Karachi a day before the plane crash.

The deceased engineer’s father Muhammad Rafiq said that they used to go for research early in the morning and returned to Karachi on the same plane. “It was our daily routine,” Rafiq said. He said that Sajid had three children Nida Sajid (7), Maryam (5) and Muhammad (8-months-old). He said that his younger brother Kashif Rafiq had already left to recover Sajid’s body but it was currently in a dead house in Karachi for DNA testing.

The burial of both men is expected on Sunday.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2010.