Four members of a family – three teenage girls and a young man – drowned during a picnic at Thaddo Dam in Gadap Town on Wednesday evening.
A fifth member of the family was rescued and the locals were able to retrieve all the bodies.
Thaddo Dam, located nearly 10 kilometres away from Baqai Medical University off Super Highway, is a popular and scenic picnic spot for the residents of Gadap Town. Many families drive to the embankments for fishing and camping as well. Thaddo Dam is linked with Hub Dam and mainly supplies irrigation water to the nearby fields.
The drowned victims were identified as 25-year-old Javed, son of Muhammad Siddique Jokhio, 16-year-old Rehana, daughter of Zahid Jokhio, 18-year-old Mariam, daughter of Karim Buksh and 16-year-old Zareena, daughter of Abdul Razzak. Eighteen-year-old Farhat, daughter of Shaikh, was rescued alive.
The bodies were taken to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for medico-legal formalities but their families took away the bodies without autopsies. The bodies of the three victims were shifted to Golimar neighbourhood but their funeral prayers were offered in Gadap Town where they were later buried. “The girls were residents of Golimar and Javed lived in Gadap,” said Gadap City police station’s SHO Khan Nawaz. “They came with their parents to Gadap City to visit their relatives,” he explained. “During the visit, they planned a picnic to the dam but it, unfortunately, turned tragic.”
Quoting witnesses, Nawaz said that Javed jumped into the water to save Farhat. “After him, the remaining three girls also jumped to rescue her,” he said. While Javed managed to rescue Farhat and brought her back to safety, he jumped back again to save the other three, he added. He also drowned trying to rescue everyone.
Following the incident, a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Haleem Adil Shaikh reached the spot. “The water level was up which caused the drowning,” he said. “There should at least be warning signs and the staff must stop people from bathing in the dangerous waters.”
Meanwhile, a woman and a man also drowned during a picnic at Gadani beach in Hub area. Rescuers managed, however, to retrieve the woman’s body and were making efforts to locate the man’s body late into the evening.
Earlier on June 8, two teenage boys lost their lives when they drowned in a water chamber off Super Highway but their bodies were never recovered. Sheraz Baloch, 19, and his friends had gone swimming in a 10-by-10 water chamber of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) , located in Gulshan-e-Mehran near Saadi Town. Two days after he drowned, his 18-year-old cousin, Abdul Wahid Baloch, decided to jump and recover his body.
The water chamber runs all the way from Dhabeji and supplies water to the entire city. There is an iron bar that runs down into the pipeline and young men often hold onto the bars as they bathe inside. Swimming is not possible due to high pressure of the water.
