September 18, 2002	Wednesday	Rajab 10, 1423

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RAWALPINDI, Sept 17: Nine labourers were electrocuted and two others injured when a high-tension current passed through a double-storey building at the bustling Committee Chowk on Murree Road on Tuesday night, witnesses and hospital authorities said.

Eleven labourers were shifted unconscious to different city hospitals in ambulances and taxis. Nine of them were later pronounced dead.

The victims were identified as Sajid, Irfan, Naseer, Zaheer, Ansar, Qadeer, Qaiser, Nazir and Imran. The dead included three brothers.

The injured were identified as Abdul Waheed and Khalid Mahmood.

“They are in a state of shock, but stable,” a doctor at the hospital said.

According to Waheed, reconstruction work was in progress on Younus Sweet shop at the Committee Chowk when a steel wire, tied to the signboard of a candidate contesting October elections, collapsed and fell on the high-tension electric wires passing near the building.

“We were working on the first floor of the building when the current passed through it, electrocuting our friends but we succeeded in coming out of the shop”, one of the survivors said.

Two other labourers, Ansar Mehmood and Mohammed Arshad, ran out of th shop and survived the tragedy.

Khalid Mehmood told Dawn that it was because of the fear of the tehsil municipal administration that they had to finish the construction work at night. “In the day time, the municipal authorities do not allow us to carry out construction work because of traffic rush on Murree Road”, he said.

Moving scenes were witnessed at the DHQ hospital when the relatives saw the bodies of the victims.

District Nazim Raja Tariq Kiani and SSP Syed Moravat Shah visited the hospital.

The Nazim has ordered an inquiry.