LARKANA: The Sindh High Court on Tuesday took suo motu notice of the collapse of a wide portion of the dilapidated Agro bridge over Radhan section of Dadu Canal a day earlier.

A man and a small girl, along with the tonga they were travelling in, fell into the canal when a wide portion of the bridge’s road caved in on Monday. The girl, Khanzadi Solangi, who was in the lap of her mother while they were riding the tonga, drowned but some villagers jumped into the canal and rescued the woman and her two other children, Sadakat Ali, 8 and Asima, 3.

The 65-year-old man, Nabi Bakhsh Wadho, later succumbed to the serious injuries he had sustained in the incident.

Taking suo motu notice of the incident, Justice Zaffar Ahmed Rajput of the SHC’s Larkana circuit bench, converted a note submitted by the court’s assistant registrar to a constitutional petition and issued notices to the Larkana deputy commissioner and SSP as well as the superintendent engineer, executive engineer and other irrigation officials of Dadu canal, besides the additional advocate general, for Sept 29.

The judge observed that the matter required serious consideration in the larger interest of the general public. He asked respondents to appear in person before him along with their respective reports regarding the incident.

According to local residents, the bridge had been in a dilapidated condition for about six years and complaints in this regard had been made several a times to the local irrigation officials but without any response. It was reported that small potholes and cracks had already developed in the middle of the road and finally a wide portion caved in while the tonga was passing through it.

Published in Dawn September 28th, 2016