Pakistan Civil Society Forum (Sindh Chapter) on Tuesday expressed serious concerns over the death of five workers in a factory in Korangi industrial area in Karachi on Sunday and demanded the government to take the responsible persons to the task.
According to a statement, PCSF (Sindh Chapter) held a meeting at PILER Centre, where the representatives of the civil society organizations and trade unions condemned the incident and demanded the government to provide compensation to the victims’ families.
According to reports, five workers Irfan Sharif (25), Miraj (28) Raheem (24), his brother Shakeel (20) and Irbaz (23) died of suffocation in a chemical tank at the plastic factory in Sector 24 of Korangi Industrial Area when they were cleaning it. Some other workers are also under treatment.
The speakers deplored that after every other day, the incidents of industrial accidents are reported in the media, but health and safety situation in the industries is not improving. Prevention of such incident would be possible if the responsibilities of such incidents are fixed. In this case, the workers were not provided any safety gadgets or masks before sending the workers into the chemical tank.
They pointed that labour inspection in the industries and other workplaces is not carried out by the provincial labour departments, which has been resulted in frequent accidents and losses of the workers lives.
The meeting decided to form a fact-finding committee headed by Asad Iqbal Butt of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) to ascertain the facts. Similarly, another committee was formed which would meet the victims’ families.
