Three fishermen have died and five others have been admitted in hospitals in critical condition after they consumed a chemical in Ibrahim Hyderi locality, according to police officials.
They said the incident took place near the sea in the early hours of Wednesday, adding that the victims were taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and the Indus Hospital in Korangi.
Police said doctors pronounced three of them dead on arrival. They said the deceased were identified as Saleem, Rashid and Shahbaz. According to the surviving victims’ initial statements to the police, they had caught a bottle in their fishing net and drunk from it thinking it was liquor, but it turned out to be some chemical. Officials said the survivors were identified as Ismail, Junaid, Sameer, Inam and Gul Hassan.
District Malir SSP Irfan Bahadur confirmed that the bottle did not contain liquor but some type of chemical, saying that they had sent the bottle to the laboratory to ascertain what kind of
chemical the fishermen had consumed.