• Eight children among 27 people lost to uncovered sewers this year: Edhi
• Latest incident calls into question utilisation of funds given to UCs exclusively for manhole lids
• Deputy mayor promises action, says TMC in question was not controlled by PPP

KARACHI: In yet another incident showing civic neglect, an eight-year-old boy drowned in an uncovered manhole in Mehran Town within the municipal jurisdiction of Shah Faisal Town on Monday.

According to the Edhi Foundation, the number of people who died after falling in open manholes and drains across the metropolis rises to 27 in the outgoing year of 2025. Eight of them are children, the data says.

Earlier this month, a three-year-old boy, Ibrahim, fell into an open manhole outside a department store near Nipa in Gulshan-i-Iqbal Town and his body was recovered after an hours-long search operation.

The incident sparked widespread backlash against the government, prompting the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation to increase the budget of 246 union committees in the metropolis to exclusively maintain manhole covers and streetlights.

However, still hundreds, if not thousands, of manholes in Karachi’s 25 towns and 246 UCs remain uncovered, raising the question of where the funds allocated specifically for manhole lids have gone.

The latest incident took place within the administrative jurisdiction of Shah Faisal Town, which is run by the chairman of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.

The victim was identified as Dilbar, who was playing outside his home in the Mehran Town area when he fell into the open manhole.

Korangi SSP Fida Husain Janwari told Dawn his uncle rushed to the spot after receiving the information, but the child died by then. He recovered the body from the gutter and shifted it to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medico-legal formalities.

Talking to the media, the grief-stricken father Azhar Ali said Dilbar was his only child. He said that the manhole was without a cover for the past one month.

Deputy mayor visits victim’s house

Later in the evening, Deputy Mayor Salman Abdullah Murad visited the victim’s house to express condolence with the family.

Talking to the media, he said that he did not came here to do politics. He said the TMC in question did not belong to the Pakistan Peoples Party. He said he asked the TMC chairman to come along but he was in Hyderabad.

He said that after the Nipa tragedy every UC was given Rs100,000 for manhole lids. “We will find whosoever is responsible and take strict action, whether they are government officials or elected representatives,” he said.

MQM-P, JI condemn

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and the Jamaat-i-Islami condemned the death of the minor boy.

In a statement, an MQM-P spokesperson said that the incident exposed the negligence of the provincial government, Karachi mayor and civic authorities.

The spokesperson demanded that action be taken against the PPP-led civic administration and JI-led town municipal corporations for their failure to protect innocent citizens.

Meanwhile, city chief of JI Monem Zafar blamed the Karachi mayor for the incident, saying open manholes had nothing to do with Shah Faisal or Korangi towns as it was the job of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation which falls under the mayor.

Published in Dawn, December 30th, 2025