Bodies of three newborns were found in a garbage dump in Karachi’s North Nazimabad area on Saturday, according to the police.

Sharea Noorjehan Station House Officer (SHO) Qamar Kiani told Dawn.com that the bodies were thrown in a garbage dump in Block-L of North Nazimabad and were found floating in jars filled with water and chemicals.

He speculated that they might have been used for “medical purposes by a medical institute” in the city but were thrown in the garbage instead of being properly disposed of or buried.

The SHO said some medical instruments were also found.

The officer said that generally, “bodies of newborns recovered in the city are wrapped up in shopping bags or bed sheets.”

He added that the bodies were sent to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for autopsy and the police awaited medical reports to initiate further legal proceedings.

A report published in July earlier this year had revealed that the Edhi Foundation had buried 576 newborns in Karachi — 200 in 2021, 289 in 2022, and a minimum of 87 in the first half of 2023.

It had also stated that official records of infanticide were wildly at odds with the number of infants buried by the foundation. This had promped Sindh Police to “issue formal instructions to register a criminal case if a dead newborn is found abandoned”.