June 2, 2003	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 1, 1424

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THATTA, June 1: At least twenty-five picnickers, majority of them women and children, all residents of Federal-B Area and Jafar-i-Tayyar Society, Malir, Karachi, drowned as their overloaded motorboat capsized in the Keenjhar Lake near here on Sunday.

Till the filing of this report, 22 bodies had been recovered by divers.

The deceased were identified as Nida Zahra, 16, daughter of Husnain Akhtar; Khairun Nisa, 30, wife of Naseerul Hassan; Shakil Zahra, 25, wife of Naqi Hyder; Khushnood Bano, 35, wife of Intekhab Hyder; Kausar Zahra, 30; Nargis Fatima, 20; Farhat Fatima, 14; Qamar Fatima, 30; Wasim Hyder, 10; Mujtaba, Ulfat Zahra, Naqi Hyder, Raisa, Hina Fatima, Abbas, Tania, Waqar, Zain, Huma, Amber Fatima, and Mehwish.

Efforts were being made to recover the bodies of others still missing.

A member of the party, Zulfiqar Haider, said five more picnickers were not traceable. He provided a list of 27 persons to DCO Thatta.

A Sindh government handout put the figure at 26.

Witnesses said 38 picnickers, soon after arriving at Keenjhar in a coaster, hired two boats. A group of women and children, 22 in number, boarded a boat which had a capacity of 12 persons.

Due to strong winds the boat capsized in deep waters.

Hundreds of picnickers, who brought the bodies to the civil hospital, Makli, and local young men, became unruly and hurled stones on the jeep of Thatta DCO Usman Panhwar who reached the hospital with District Nazim Shafqat Hussain Shah Shirazi after three hours of arrival of bodies.

The police resorted to aerial firing to control the situation.

Husnain, a member of the picnickers’ group, told this correspondent that they rescued over half a dozen unconscious women but due to non-availability of medical facilities and first-aid at the lake, they died before reaching the Makli Civil Hospital, which is 36 kilometre away from the site.

A rescue boat of the police department has been lying out of order at the lake for over a year and a half.

The relatives of the victims said that the absence of rescue and medical facilities at the Keenjhar Lake depicted the criminal negligence of the Sindh culture and tourism department which managed it.

They said the department was receiving millions of rupees from picnickers but it extended no facility of divers and medical care at the site.

They demanded registration of criminal cases against the officials concerned.