KARACHI: For the second consecutive day, rescue workers on Saturday carried out a search operation to recover an 11-year-old boy feared to have drowned after being swept away while swimming in a major water line in Scheme 33. The boy, Zahid Mohammed Khan, was swept away around 2pm on Friday while swimming in the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC)’s line in Scheme-33 near Al-Azhar Garden. Lifeguards from Rescue 1122 and the Edhi Foundation searched until Friday night, but were unable to recover the boy.
Subsequently, the operation was paused due to a lack of visibility. On Saturday, Rescue 1122 Spokesperson Hassanul Haseeb Khan told Dawn that officials resumed the search operation at two separate locations, near Samama Shopping Mall and Continental Bakery in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, with the help of the district administration but the boy was not found. He referred to other incidents that had occurred in the vicinity in the recent past, saying the bodies were later recovered at the aforementioned locations, where iron grills had been installed by the KWSC to block objects flowing with the water.
Khan added that the water’s rapid flow may have taken the boy further. Last year, the drowning of a three-year-old boy in an open manhole near Karachi’s NIPA had sparked public outrage. The boy’s body was found after a 15-hour rescue operation.