LAHORE: Police on Thursday arrested all three people nominated in the first information report (FIR) report registered after a woman and her minor daughter died after falling into an under-construction sewer line a day earlier.
The FIR was filed by the woman’s father and named the construction project’s manager and safety management. The FIR — available with Dawn — was filed at the Bhatti Gate police station under Section 322 (manslaughter) of the Pakistan Penal Code. In the complaint, the deceased woman’s father stated that his son received a call from his son-in-law informing him about the incident.
“Upon receiving this information, I, my son … my son-in-law … and my friend … reached Data Darbar at about 2:30am,” the complainant stated in the FIR. “There, my son-in-law … informed us that his wife … and his daughter … had fallen into the said manhole.”
The FIR noted the woman’s husband added that her body had been recovered, but at the time, the daughter’s body was still missing.
The complainant named three individuals in the FIR, accusing them of leaving “the manhole open due to negligence and carelessness”. These were the construction project’s project manager, the safety in-charge and the site in-charge.
“Due to their gross negligence and irresponsibility, my daughter … and my granddaughter … lost their lives,” he said in the complaint.
Subsequently, Lahore Operations SSP Mohammad Tauqir confirmed to Dawn that the suspects nominated in the FIR by the complainant had been arrested.
The arrests were made after Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz issued directions to expand the scope of action to punish those responsible for the death of the woman and her minor daughter.
Child’s body found
Earlier on Thursday, police said that the body of the child, said to be a baby between nine to ten months old in the FIR, was recovered. The body of the mother was found during the wee hours of Thursday morning.
In a statement, Rescue 1122 said that its “diving team had recovered the girl’s body from Saggian”, around five kilometres from Bhatti Chowk, where the incident took place a day earlier.
The woman and her child had reportedly fallen into the open manhole after they dismounted a rickshaw on Wednesday evening. At the time, conflicting reports had emerged about the incident, with some authorities doubting that the woman had in fact fallen into the manhole.
Reportedly, rescue teams had initially doubted the call made by the woman’s husband and also raised doubts about the authenticity of the incident. They had alleged that the water level at the time of the operation was just two feet deep, which made it impossible for a person to drown.
Meanwhile, official statements, including those by the district management, further complicated the matter as they shifted the entire blame on the woman’s husband.
Following these premature statements, police high-ups ordered the interrogation of the woman’s husband.
The role of the project managers also remained questionable. The under-construction sewerage pipeline was left uncovered, despite the fact that hundreds of people visiting Data Darbar were walking around in the area.
In the early hours of Thursday, Lahore Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Operations Faisal Kamran had stated that the body of the mother had been found at the disposal station on Outfall Road.
When asked about the various reports about the water flow not being fast enough to carry away a person, he said, “You should also look at the time difference. When it happened, the water flow was fast; those are peak hours.”
He said that the water flow receded as the night progressed.
At the same time, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz had taken notice of the incident and constituted a fact-finding committee to investigate the matter and submit a report within 24 hours.
It should also be mentioned that two officials of Tepa, a subsidiary of the Lahore Development Authority, were placed under suspension with immediate effect “on account of an incident [regarding] uncovered manholes”.
Last month, a seven-year-old boy in Punjab’s Bahawalpur district fell into an open manhole in Dhanote town near Lodhran city and died.
