LAYYAH: The death toll from the recent incident of mass poisoning after the consumption of alleged toxic sweetmeat rose to 14 in Layyah, Fatehpur police station officials quoting Nishtar Hospital of Multan sources said.

On Friday, six people died which included Adnan, Adil, Haseeb, Irum, Gulnaz and Sher Muhammad.

Victims, of Chak 105-ML in Layyah, started to fall ill on Wednesday after consuming sweet bought from Tariq Hotel and Sweet in Chak 111-ML.

The worst victim was Umer Hayat, of Chak 105-ML, who lost six sons – Irfan, Ramzan, Shahabaz, Khizer Sikander and Sher Muhammad.

Sweet was distributed to celebrate birth of a child

He had bought sweet to celebrate the birth of his grandson, the son of seventh son, Sajjad.

Police said after eating Laddu, the people started vomiting.

On Wednesday, 34 people were admitted to the Layyah District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital and the Fatehpur Tehsil Headquarters (THQ) Hospital.

The DHQ and THQ hospitals referred eight and 12 people to the Nishtar Hospital on Thursday due to their critical condition, of them 14 have died.

Police said three more were also critical and on ventilator, without releasing more details about them.

Executive District Officer Dr Ameer Abdullah said a health department team had sealed the shop from where the poisonous sweetmeat was bought. They also seized the wrappers of pesticides –Drown and Kutalantice – from the scene.

Karor Deputy Superintendent of Police Rameez Bukhari told Dawn police had arrested sweet shop owners Khalid Mahmood and Tariq Mahmood and their servant Muhammad Amir. The samples of poisonous sweet along with other material had been sent to a forensic laboratory in Lahore.

Iram Shaheen, a relative of the patients, said the district government did not help the poor families as they had to bear the expenses of tests from private laboratories in Multan while a private ambulance charged Rs4,000 for transporting one body from the Nishtar Hospital to Chak 105-ML.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2016