September 05, 2007	Wednesday	Sha'aban 22, 1428

DADU, Sept 4: Six more bodies were found in and around the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar even though the three-day Urs officially ended a day before, raising the number of dead over the past four days to 36 on Tuesday.

Devotees are dying due to heat-stroke, suffocation and drowning in the nearby Aral Canal. Local police found the bodies in Makrani Mohalla, Lal Bagh and Sewstan Fort and handed them over to Edhi Centre after autopsy at taluka hospital.

The in-charge of Edhi Centre in Sehwan, Ishfaque Ahmed Khushik, said that they had not been able to identify the bodies and four of the bodies had been buried in the graveyard in Sehwan. Edhi Centre had found a total of 36 bodies over a period of four days, he confirmed.

The secretary of Mela committee, Sohil Adeeb Bachani, said that the number of dead from drowning showed that police had not fully implemented section 144 imposed by the district government on bathing in the canal and the Indus River.

Most of the dead belonged to Punjab and other provinces, who died of suffocation, heat-stroke and drowning.

MUSICAL SHOW: Famous singers, including Manzoor Sakhirani, Shaman Ali Mirali, Hanif Lashari, Tufail Sanjrani, Humera Channa, Deeba Sahar, Taj Mastani, Zulfiqar Ali, Mazhar Hussain, Ambar Mahak, Zamin Ali, Ghulam Samoon, Sanam Marvi and Nirma Kanwal sang at Shabaz Auditorium in a musical show organised by the Mela committee. Abida Parveen and Shazia Khushik did not turn up at the event.

ENQUIRY: A three-member enquiry committee headed by Israr Ahmed Ansari, general manager of Customer Services Wapda of Lahore, visited 500 KV Grid Station in Dadu on Tuesday to begin probe into the fire incident in 160 MVA Auto Transformer on Aug 8.

The committee recorded statements of six employees of the Grid Station including resident engineer, two SDOs and three supervisors.