“I work at a leading cell phone service provider but I don’t have a mobile to communicate with my family,” says 34-year-old Riaz Hussain, who lies helplessly on a hospital bed at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC). He says his company has given mobile phones and free-calls service only to the higher officials, who already possess mobiles, but does not provide this facility to the lower staff workers. “How do I contact my family, whom I want to see,” the victim rued.
Hussain, son of Hazur Bux, is one of the victims of the blast that targeted a Pakistan Navy personnel carrier near PNS Mehran on Thursday.
Resident of a slum settlement near Kamran Chowrangi, Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Hussain was standing near the petrol pump at Shahrah-e-Faisal, when a powerful explosion left him unconscious. He was shifted to the JPMC by a rescue service. As the victim regained consciousness, he started looking around to see if his family was there but found no one.
Hussain told Pakistan Today that he was working for the country’s leading cellular company in the capacity of a loader and was waiting for his company’s van. “I was standing near the PSO petrol pump waiting for the office van to pick me up when a powerful blast took place at the back. I felt like a bullet had hit my spinal cord and fell unconscious. When I regained senses, I found myself at the hospital,” recalls Hussain, with tears in his eyes.
“The Almighty has blessed me with a new life and I want to see my two children and wife,” Hussain said. Meanwhile, JPMC Joint Executive Director Seemin Jamali told Pakistan Today that one dead body and five injured persons were brought to the emergency ward but later four more bodies arrived for medico-legal formalities. “Emergency was imposed in the JPMC after the blast while four injured persons were discharged after initial treatment but one has been kept under observation and admitted to the surgical ward,” she added.
She said the bodies were handed over to their heirs for burial after completing autopsy. The powerful explosion just 30 yards away from PNS Mehran at Shahrah-e-Faisal forced the closure of PSO pump. Late into Thursday evening, no one was being allowed to near the refuelling station as investigators cordoned off the area to complete the required formalities.
