KARACHI: Police on Monday registered a case against the owner and driver of a van in which six people were burnt to death after the vehicle caught fire in the Garden area a day before.

The families of two brothers were heading towards the Hawkesbay beach for picnic from Soldier Bazaar and they made a brief stopover near the Karachi Zoo where the tragedy happened.

Garden SHO Ghulam Nabi Afridi on Monday told Dawn that the police registered an FIR against Farhan, the owner of the vehicle, and driver Fahad Ali on a charge of manslaughter. They were already in police custody.

According to the police, the case has been registered under Section 322 (punishment for qatl bis sabab: whoever commits qatl bis sabab shall be liable to diyat) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Garden police station.

The case was registered on the complaint of Mohammad Ali, one of the injured whose wife and a teenage daughter were also among the six dead.

The SHO said that an initial investigation showed that the driver was under the influence of some drugs.

Initial findings suggested that a fire broke out in the van’s battery and because of gas leakage the whole vehicle erupted into flames that triggered a blast. As a result, six persons sitting in the vehicle were burnt to death within a few minutes.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2017