KARACHI, March 19: An unknown young man was killed and six others were injured, two of them seriously, on Wednesday when the roof edge of an old building on M. A. Jinnah Road fell down, witnesses and police said.
Witnesses told Dawn that a heavy mass of concrete fell on the pedestrians walking on the pavement under Haji Sami Chambers, reportedly a colonial-era building.
They said a young man died instantly under the rubble that also left many others injured, two of them seriously.
The witnesses said people ran about for shelter as some portion of the building fell with a big bang.
The dead and the injured were taken to the Civil Hospital, where doctors said Salim, son of Ashfaq, 40, and Shajar Mustafa, son of Aley Mustafa, 35, were in a highly critical condition.
A duty doctor told Dawn that the two victims were still in coma as they had received ‘life threatening’ injuries.
The hospital sources said three others, identified as Abdul Hameed, 60, Saeed Akram, 35, Saud Nawaz, 60, and Agha Muttaqi, 50, were slightly injured and they were discharged after treatment.
Arambagh police said the body of the unknown man, who was in his mid-20s, was kept at Edhi’s morgue at Sohrab Goth and the police were making efforts to find the victim’s family so that a case could be registered.
Minor found dead
The three-year-old son of a cobbler was found gagged to death on Wednesday in a graveyard near Malir Halt.
Airport police said the body of Alla Wasaya, son of Jalil Ahmed, was found in the graveyard bushes near his Khosa Goth hut in the morning.
The family said the boy had been missing since Tuesday evening, though they did not report the matter to police.
The police said the father of the minor victim discovered the body himself in the morning.
The body was transported to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where sources said it did not bear any wound or mark of torture.
The police have registered a murder case against unknown culprits on the complaint of the victim’s father.
The police suspected that the boy might have been killed accidentally while playing with other children.