November 23, 2024 12:22 (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
'Third World War has begun:' Ex-Ukraine military commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny | UK-India Free Trade Agreement negotiations to resume in early 2024 | UK can arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits country based on ICC warrant | Centre to send over 10,000 additional soldiers to violence-hit Manipur amid fresh violence | Chhattisgarh: 10 Maoists killed during encounter with security forces in Sukma
Pakistan: Stampedes at free flour centres leaves two people, including an old woman, dead
Pakistan Stampede
Image: Pixabay

Pakistan: Stampedes at free flour centres leaves two people, including an old woman, dead

| @indiablooms | 29 Mar 2023, 03:28 pm

Two more people, including an old woman, died and 56 others were hurt in Pakistan due to stampedes at free flour centres in Sahiwal, Bahawalpur, Muzaffargarh and Okara districts of the country on Tuesday.

The deceased woman was identified as Naseem Akhter.

The stampedes occurred amid mismanagement   at distribution points.

The old woman who came to collect free flour died in a stampede while 45 women received injuries of various types at a flour distribution centre at the Quaid-i-Azam Stadium during the early hours of Tuesday, reports Dawn News.

There was reportedly a technical glitch with the app used to verify the beneficiaries and it stopped working. This resulted in a great rush of people at free flour distribution who got frustrated due to the long wait for the system to restart working.

It is said the app link remained down and did not restart for three to four hours and there were more than 1,500 women present in the stadium who had come to receive flour. The stadium has one of the biggest flour distribution points in the city.

Many women blamed the police for causing the mayhem at the centre, saying though there was a rush of people, the situation was calm until the Civil Lines policemen deputed at the centre started manhandling and baton-charging the citizens. The stampede occurred due to the disorder.

An eyewitness told Dawn News that the administration’s app went down and the people started shouting in discomfort stuck in the rush and long queues.

Police tried to calm the situation but instead of normalising the situation, they started baton charge while the women were seen being slapped and pushed by the policemen, which infuriated the crowd further, leading to the worsening of the situation and a stampede, the eye witness said.

Adnan Shamas of the Rescue 1122 official told Dawn more around six emergency vehicles and staff treated the injured women and men. Twenty-five injured women were shifted to the Sahiwal Teaching Hospital for further medical treatment while the rest were provided first aid on the spot.

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.
Related Images
Xi Jinping, Putin in Russia 22 Mar 2023, 02:56 pm
Related Videos