KARACHI: A young woman and a three-year-old girl drowned after their house on a side of the Gujjar Nala collapsed when Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) staff removed silt and garbage from the storm-water drain in the Gulberg area on Thursday.

Four members of the family were rescued after their house collapsed. The body of 20-year-old Shahnaz was recovered, while efforts were under way till late evening to find the body of three-year-old Hira who was believed to have drowned in the drain.

The incident triggered a violent protest by residents and area people near the famous Café Payala in Federal B Area Block-18, as they blamed the authorities for the tragedy. However, a senior official said the house collapsed because it was “illegally constructed” on a bank of the Gujjar Nala and was in dilapidated condition.

With the help of heavy machinery the KMC staff removed a pile of garbage lying along the wall of the house in the drain that weakened its structure with the result that the house collapsed, said Samanabad SHO Manzoor Ahmed Shaikh.

Three of the injured were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. They were identified as Nighat Ramzan, 30, her four-year-old daughter, Alia Ramzan, and their relative 45-year-old Mohammed Maqbool. A hospital official told Dawn that their condition was out of danger.

The drowning, however, triggered protests by residents living on homes built on the banks of the Gujjar Nala. They hurled stones at moving vehicles near Café Payala, suspending traffic for a considerable period.

The angry protesters also tried to damage and set fire to the KMC machinery, but the police prevented them from doing so.

Work on the cleaning of the Gujjar Nala was suspended after the incident.

The residents said the wall of the house collapsed only when a shovel hit it during the cleaning work. But SHO Shaikh quoted the crane driver as saying that he was at ‘some distance’ from the house when it fell down.

Karachi Central deputy commissioner Faridudin Mustafa told the media that the collapse of the house had nothing to do with the cleaning of the Gujjar Nala, as it was situated on one side of the drain while cleaning was being done on the opposite side. He said the house was illegally constructed and it fell only because it was in a dilapidated condition.

The officer said the residents had been informed about the cleaning of the storm-water drain. But the area people denied to have received any such information.

Central SSP Muqadas Haider told Dawn that they would conduct an ‘inquiry’ into the incident with the district administration to ascertain possible negligence of the KMC staff. If their negligence was proved, action would be taken against them, he said.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2016