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Thursday March 28, 2024

Five siblings die of food poisoning in Karachi

By Faraz Khan
February 23, 2019

KARACHI: Five children of a family died of suspected food poisoning after eating ‘biryani’ parceled from a restaurant in Karachi’s Saddar area on the night between Friday and Saturday. Police and the family claimed that the cause of death could be the poisonous food they had eaten in a restaurant.

The five siblings who died in the tragic incident aged between eighteen months to nine years. Their mother and aunt were also admitted to a hospital. The deceased children were identified as one-and-a-half-year-old Abdul Ali, four-year-old Aziz Faisal, Aliya, 6, Tauheed, 7, and Salwa, 9. Police officials said that the sixth victim was their mother, Nida Faisal, and the seventh was their father’s sister, Bina, who’s in critical condition. A special team of doctors conducted the post-mortem of the deceased.

The victims were brought to a private hospital located at the Stadium Road where doctors pronounced them dead on arrival. Their mother was later discharged from hospital after medical first aid while their aunt remained admitted to the hospital’s ICU, her condition being critical.

Following the tragedy, the authorities including police and food authority sealed the restaurant, guest house’s kitchen and also collected samples of food for chemical examination. The family belonging to Pishin of Balochistan was on a visit to Karachi.

The deceased children’s father Faisal Zaman Kakar, who is a businessman related to construction business, said that the family had parceled biryani from the Naubahar Biryani Centre located near the Passport Office in Saddar and ate it at his guest house room. After this, his wife, sister and children fell sick, adding that they were taken to a private hospital where the children died.

“Some 15 employees of the restaurant have also been detained by the police and the crime scene has been secured,” South Zone police chief DIG Sharjeel Kharal briefed the media. “The cause of death seems to be food poisoning initially,” said Gulshan Division SP Tahir Ahmed Noorani. “But the final cause of death will be determined after the reports.”

Civil Lines SHO Sajjad Ahmed said that the bodies of deceased children had been sent to their hometown from Mehran Base, adding that it was yet to be made clear which food killed them as they continued to eat while travelling from Balochistan to Sindh, Karachi. “The chemical and forensic reports would confirm the nature of deaths,” SHO Ahmed explained. “Then we would be able to register a case.”

Sindh Governor Imran Ismail and Adviser to Chief Minister Sindh on Information, Law and Anti Corruption, Barrister Murtaza Wahab also took notice of the incident and sought a detailed report from IGP Sindh and Karachi commissioner, ordering them to investigate the case transparently from all angles. The DIG South also met with Sindh governor and briefed him about police’s initial findings over the incident.

The biryani center’s manager denied the allegations made against them. “Hundreds of people are getting biryani from us on daily basis but not a single incident has ever occurred,” the management claimed. “The media, police, government and everyone are blaming us without any concrete evidence.” They said that hundreds of other people also ate biryani last night but not a single complainant came forward.

Last year on November 11, 2018, two minors had died while their mother fell sick after eating at an eatery in the DHA area of Karachi and later the police investigations confirmed that they died of consuming poisonous food from the Arizona Grill in Karachi.

M. Waqar Bhatti adds: The Sindh Food Authority (SFA) sealed the kitchens of Naubahar Restaurant in the Saddar area of the city as well as the Qasr-e-Naz Guest House after collecting samples of the cooked and uncooked food from both the places.

But the SFA claimed fumigants could have caused the children’s death. Director General Sindh Food Authority Amjad Leghari suspected that fumigants used by the Qasr-e-Naz State Guest to kill rodents and insects could have killed the children as heavy amount of insecticides were found in the room where the family from Quetta had stayed while insecticides had also been poured into other vacant rooms of the guest house.

“All five children of the ill-fated family were lying on the floor of the room while the guest house administration had placed fumigants to kill rodents and insects in their rooms. Investigators suspect that fumigants could have been the cause of children’s death inside the guest house room”, Amjad Leghari said.

He said a team of experts from the HEJ Research Center of Karachi University had collected samples of fumigants used by the Qasr-e-Naz administration for killing rodents and insects and they had also sealed their store where they had stored the chemicals which they were using the fumigation at the guest house.

Meanwhile, Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani has suspected that insecticide powder sprinkled in the rooms of Qasr-e-Naz (federal government lodges) in Karachi could be the reason that led to the poisoning of the Biryani consumed by the family hailing from Balochistan whose five minor children expired on Friday.

Speaking in the session of the Sindh Assembly, he said that he had seen photographs of the rooms and it was clearly seen in them that the insecticide powder was sprinkled on the floor of the rooms in ample quantity. Saeed Ghani said that he suspected that it could be the cause of poisoning of the food as the concerned family from Balochistan sat on the floor of their room at Qasr-e-Naz to have their dinner. He said that chemical in the insecticide powder could become poisonous if it reacted with air and other things. He also informed the house about the emergency assistance provided by the Sindh government on the directives of Sindh chief minister to the bereaved family after the tragic death of their children.

Meanwhile, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah taking serious notice of the death of five children directed commissioner Karachi to personally visit the guest family of Quetta and initiate an inquiry as per their statement and guidance.