Child electrocution incident: K-Electric vows cooperation in investigation

• Announces to bear expenses of treatment after family’s demand

KARACHI: K-Electric (KE) on Sunday sympathised with the family of the child, Muhammad Umer, who has to electrocute City’s Ahsanabad area and said that it will continue to engage with them for all possible support for current and future medical expenses.

Responding to the family’s decision to take legal action against the incident, the electricity supplier said that it is understandable that the child’s family looks to explore legal options. As a law-abiding organisation, KE will extend full cooperation in the investigation process, it was stated.

As per preliminary investigations, the incident was a consequence of the pervasive kunda wires to extract power through illegal infrastructure by some other elements where this unfortunate incident took place and the innocent child got injured, KE said.

It was maintained that the company has repeatedly disconnected this illegal network and even initiated regulatory action, and will continue to seek strong government support and rigorous enforcement to curb this menace by ensuring that unplanned settlements, illegal networks and kundas are eliminated so that public safety is not compromised.

KE requested the relevant authorities’ intervention to ensure KE operations in the area are not disrupted.

FAMILY’S DEMAND TO BEAR TREATMENT EXPENSES:

Earlier, eight-year-old Umer’s, who had lost his both arms had to be amputated due to electrocution, had demanded from the KE authorities to bear all expenses for treatment of their child from a foreign country as no advance prosthesis treatment facilities are available in the country for children with amputated arms.

Father of the eight-year-old boy, Muhammad Arif said the unfortunate incident was reported on the third day Eid when Umer, a student of class two went to the nearby shop to purchase pampers of a younger brother in Ahsanabad area when suddenly a high tension wire fell on him and his hands caught fire.

The family members had shifted the child to the Karachi Burns Centre for treatment where doctors amputated both his arms as they were badly burnt due to the electric shock. His condition was declared as out of danger but still remained under observation after receiving emergency medical care.

Separately, Mayor Waseem Akhtar had the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) to take suo motu notice against the rising number of electrocution incidents in the city, while Sindh Governor and other authorities had also taken notice of the incident.