KARACHI: Six women, including five sisters were killed when roof of their house collapsed during construction work in Karachi’s Afghan Camp near Jinjal Goth, Gulshan-e-Maymar, rescue and police officials said on Sunday.
Four others, including two minor children, were injured in the incident while condition of one of the injured men is said to be critical.
Gulshan-e-Maymar Station House Officer (SHO) Agha Asadullah told the media that roof of the house collapsed in a house in Afghan Camp, and as a result, 10 family members came under its debris.
He said that rescuers reached the site and took out four children died from the rubble, while two young girls were pronounced dead at the hospital.
Police surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed said five females aged seven, eight, 10, 14 and 20 were brought from the jurisdiction of Gulshan-i-Maymar. All were dead on arrival.
“The relatives refused a post-mortem examination and there were multiple injuries all over their bodies,” the police surgeon said.
SHO Asadullah said that the single-storey house appeared to be old and in dilapidated condition. He added that reti-bajri and other materials were being used to repair its roof, which could not withstand the burden and fell on family members asleep in the house.
He noted that although the incident occurred in Afghan Camp, the victims were not Afghan refugees. They originally hailed from Bannu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Rescue 1122 official Hassaan Khan informed that they had received information about the incident at 11pm but added that by the time they reached the spot, the bodies had already been shifted to the hospitals.
He said the roof was built with ‘tile material’ and that residents told the rescue workers that its pieces had been falling.
The injured were identified as Mikail, 40; Nasira, 37; Noman, 3; and Asif, 7. Police said the condition of Mikail was critical.
The officer said that since this was an accident, no legal proceedings had been taken.
Saad Edhi said the coffins of all deceased girls had been shifted to the Edhi morgue, but till late Sunday evening, the relatives had not arrived to take the bodies for burial.
