BAHAWALPUR: Three persons, including two girls, died in mysterious circumstances on Friday night, while two other children were under treatment at the Bahawal Victoria Hospital (BVH) Bahawalpur.

As per details, the deceased included Manahil (16), Abeaha (13) and Abdul Aziz (23), belonging to two separate homes in Mohallah Raja Chowk in Hasilpur city.

Dawn learnt that after one girl fell ill on Thursday, she was taken to the tehsil headquarter hospital the same night and was discharged after receiving first aid. However, the next day on Friday, she died.

Later, another girl and a man of the same neighbourhood also died mysteriously on Friday night.Moreover, two other children, Muneza (13) and Afzal (12) were shifted to the Bahawal Victoria Hospital, where they were still under treatment and were said to be in a stable condition.

According to the affected families, one family had consumed food purchased from a nearby hotel in the city, while the other family had a home-made meal. However, both families used drinking water from the same government filtration plant.

When contacted, Bahawalpur Health CEO Dr Zeeshan Rauf confirmed the deaths and the children under treatment at Bahawal Victoria Hospital.

He said the health department had sent the food, water and other samples to a Lahore laboratory for analysis after the cases surfaced.

He said that it appeared that food poisoning could have been the cause of the deaths. However, he added that the laboratory reports would ascertain the cause of death.

Dr Zeeshan further said that a team of health officials were in Hasilpur to further investigate the matter. Moreover, he said that the Bahawal Victoria Hospital Medical superintendent had separately sent samples of the two admitted children for laboratory analysis a day ago.

He ruled out any alarming situation in Hasilpur as no other such case had been reported from the city since Friday.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2026