HYDERABAD/SUKKUR: Six students of the same family, aged between 18 and seven years, were killed and another minor relative was injured when a speeding van ran over their motorcycle on Mehran National Highway in Kot Lalu area in Khairpur district on Monday.

The students, riding a rented motorcycle, were going to Al-Ramzan Elementary School in Kot Lalu from Hussain Bux Mari village when the passenger van, one of a fleet of vehicles plying illegally on this highway, hit them.

Imtiaz Ali, 18; Barsat Ali, 12; Hubdar Ali, 10; Ali Jan, 9; Zafar Ali Mari, 10, and Mazhar Ali Mari, 7, died before getting first aid and the injured identified as Intezar Ali Mari was shifted to a Nawabshah hospital where he was admitted to intensive care unit.

The area people rushed to the scene of the accident and shifted the injured and the bodies to the nearest hospital in private vehicles.

Shops and educational institutions in the area were shut in mourning over the tragedy and emotional scenes were witnessed when the bodies attired in school uniform were brought to the village.

Some angry villagers blocked a section of the Mehran National Highway and lifted the blockade after five hours when administration and police officials talked to grieving relatives.

Initially, the protesters who had staged a sit-in at the accident site refused to end the protest against indifference of Khairpur police to the tragedy but later MPA Sajid Ali Banbhan managed to pacify them.

The protesters had insisted that they would offer funeral prayers on the highway and torch the vehicle that had hit the motorcycle.

Teachers and students of the elementary school, religious and political leaders, social activists and residents of nearby villages also arrived at the site of the tragedy and later took part in the funeral and burial in the village’s graveyard.

The protesters told media persons that construction of the highway had been under way for a long time and notification for installation of traffic signs, speed breakers and cat’s eyes on the highway had not yet been implemented.

Many inter-city van services illegally used this under-construction highway to save thousands of rupees of toll tax and fuel after greasing palms of police, and thus led to tragedies every now and then, they said.

They regretted the attitude of Khairpur SSP Ameer Saud Magsi and said the SSP had failed to ensure regulation of traffic even after posting two policemen each from every police station as traffic wardens whose only job was to “collect bribe”.

They handed over six-point charter of demands to the administration, which called for ban on heavy traffic on the highway and illegal van services, registration of case against the van driver responsible for the tragedy, compensation for families of the deceased students, installation of speed breakers and barrier at Ranipur-Nawabshah point.

The van driver fled after the accident while police impounded a number of vehicles which were plying illegally on the highway.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah took notice of the tragedy and directed deputy commissioner and SSP of Khairpur to visit heirs of the deceased accompanied by MPA Banbhan, and extend help to the family, said sources.

The CM expressed grief over the accident and directed the officials concerned to probe reasons behind increasing number of accidents on the Mehran National Highway, in particular the latest tragedy, and submit to him a comprehensive report, said the sources.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2021

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