KHAIRPUR, Oct 23: A woman committed suicide with her three children by flinging herself off a bridge near Gambat into the Rohri canal on Tuesday.

A passerby managed to get her and her elder son out of the water but they died on their way to hospital.

The woman had come from Gambat town to drop her children to school but instead went to the bridge located a few kilometres away from the city.

According to eyewitnesses, she first threw her two younger children — two-year-old Asifa aka Aqsa and four-year-old Mohammad Faisal — into the canal and then herself jumped into the waterway with seven-year-old Abdullah in her arms.

People who live near the canal saw the woman’s hands above the surface of water. One of them jumped into the canal to try and save the family but could only save the woman and Abdullah. However, they both died on their way to Gambat hospital. Abdullah’s school bag was found and his books indicate that he was in kindergarten.

The bodies of his siblings could not be found till the evening.

According to the Gambat police, the woman was around 40 years old and was the wife of Ali Mohammad Shaikh, said to be a wagon driver.

Khairpur Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Abbas Baloch told Dawn that local divers were trying to find the bodies of the two younger children. He suspected that the woman committed suicide over some domestic issue.

Khairpur SSP Irfan Baloch said that he had dispatched the ASP to Gambat to collect details of the case.