KARACHI: Around 30 victims of Saturday’s deadly accident on the RCD Highway were laid to rest in Hub on Monday amid protest by their families seeking action against smuggling of petrol from Iran and immediate payment of compensation to their legal heirs.

The ambulances shifting the bodies from the Edhi morgue in Sohrab Goth had to stop and wait for three hours on the RCD Highway before resuming their journey due to the protest that ended only after the Balochistan chief minister, Dr Abdul Malik, promised Rs0.5 million compensation to the legal heirs of each deceased as well as action against the smuggling of Iranian fuel.

“The relatives were pressing [the government] to stop the smuggling of Iranian fuel in passenger vehicles and to pay compensation for the dead,” Faisal Edhi, trustee of the Edhi Foundation, told Dawn.

Mr Edhi, who led the ambulances to Hub, said that someone representing the Balochistan government talked to the protesters as the chief minister promised Rs500,000 in compensation for the families of each deceased besides action against the smuggling.

Additional police surgeon of the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital Dr Abdul Haq, head of the team of doctors who conducted the autopsy at the Edhi morgue, said that they had been earlier informed about 36 bodies but there were only 30, because the rest were turned into ashes.

He added that the team of MLOs included Dr Sheraz Khowaja, Dr Saleem Ahmed, Dr Yasmin Qamar and Dr Zakia Khurshid.

Dr Haq said that samples of 25 heirs of the deceased were obtained for DNA analysis. The victims included a woman and her three children, aged between 13 months and six years, he said, adding that the sample of her husband was taken.

The report of DNA examination was expected to be received within the next 10 days, the additional police surgeon said.

Smuggling routes identified

Sources told Dawn that the federal government gave a go-ahead to the law-enforcement agencies for a massive action against the smuggling of Iranian oil and diesel into the country. They added that three major sources of Iranian oil and diesel smuggling through sea and land routes had been identified. The action against the smuggling was expected very soon in the wake of the Hub road tragedy, said sources privy to the development.They said that Yusuf Goth was the main source of storing Iranian petrol and diesel via land route for its onward journey to Karachi, the rest of Sindh and up to Punjab. The sources said fishing boats which went for fishing in Balochistan brought smuggled fuel on their return. Besides, Muscat- and Dubai-based cargo boats, which were allowed to carry some diesel for consumption, brought up to 80,000-100,000 liters of diesel for sale here.

They said a major source of demand identified for smuggled oil was around 50 barges (petrol pumps in the sea) at West Wharf, which provided the diesel to thousands of fishing boats stationed at islands of Karachi. They said there were estimated 27,000 fishing boats, out of which around 15,000 were stated to be functional. They added that the fishing boats needed around four million litres of diesel on a monthly basis.

Of the 50 barges, the dealers of only 18 barges were registered with Pakistan State Oil, they said, adding that out of the registered barges, only nine barges received fuel from PSO.

According to PSO sales data, reviewed by Dawn on Monday, only 5.2 million litres of fuel was provided to the nine barges from July 1, 2013 to January 31, 2014.