KARACHI: A boy was killed while six other members of his family suffered burns in an explosion caused by gas leakage in New Karachi on Thursday, police said.

Bilal Colony SHO Fardad Shaikh said that gas was apparently left open in the home in Sector 5-D near Dua Chowk and owing to the leakage, the home was filled with gas. The officer said that the family were asleep at around 2.30am and when the owner woke up in the morning and lit a matchstick for smoking, it triggered an explosion. As a result, the house caught fire.

Seven persons suffered burn injuries and they were taken to a hospital, where one of them, identified as Mazhar Adil, 8, died.

The SHO said that the condition of two or three other persons was also stated to be critical. He said that all the victims belonged to the same family.

The injured were identified as Fasiur Rehman Adil, 7, Syeda Ghazi Adeel, 13, Syed Adil, 35, Nosheen Adil, 30, Saba Ateeq, 25, and Saif Ullah Adil, 12.

The police called the Bomb Disposal Squad to ascertain the nature of the explosion. The bomb experts in their report stated it was an incident caused by gas leakage. The police said that it was regular gas as no evidence of a cylinder explosion was found at the spot.

BDS official Abid Farooq told the media that it appeared that the gas leakage took place at night, with gas filling the house. He said the explosion caused substantive damage to the two-storey building.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2020