HYDERABAD, Dec 13: Around 600 villagers including women and children have contracted upper respiratory tract infection after their villages were hit by water of a lagoon that had developed a breach on the second day of Eidul Azha, inundating around one dozen villages of Qasimabad taluka.

These figures were collected by a team of doctors, formed by Medical Superintendent Civil Hospital Hyderabad Dr Abdul Jabbar Shaikh, which had examined patients in the relief camps, set up on the embankments of river Indus.

“There were 600 people who had contracted upper respiratory tract infection”, the MS told Dawn on Saturday.

He said this was the number of people who were examined between 11am and 5pm on Friday. He said that a 24-hour camp would again be established on Saturday at the same place. He stated that drugs were also provided to villagers. “If the water was not drained out completely from villages then these poor people may be hit by pneumonia, malaria and diarrhoea”, he said.

Outbreak of more diseases is feared as the people are forced to live under open sky during winters.

The villagers’ belongings and fodder were inundated in water. They complained that they were facing financial hardships.

The villagers like Qabool Detho and Allah Bachayo Sheikh were also curious about the fact that as to why inquiry had not been initiated formally into the matter.

They see a conspiracy behind this breach as they believe that corrupt officials of Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA) in collusion with builder mafia, which is eyeing precious land of Qasimabad, have perhaps sent a message to them to sell their houses.

A couple of years back sewage from Qasimabad’s pumping station had also flooded some villages in the same area and according to these villagers the present situation is also part of the same conspiracy in order to force them to vacate the land, which then can be used for commercial purposes.

The DCO Hyderabad said that WASA’s managing director Shafiq Arain – who was himself part of an inquiry team formed by district nazim - had been suspended on the directives of Sindh chief minister and preliminary probe into the causes of the breach had been initiated.

Government representatives like State Minister for Religious Affairs Shagufta Jumani, resident of Qasimabad, and Sindh Fisheries Minister Zahid Bhurgari, had called for action against WASA officials on the ground that they were holding the same positions for a long time.