According to Superintendent of Police (SP) Gulshan Tahir Noorani, the siblings — ranging between the ages of 1.5 years and 10-years-old — and their parents had consumed food from a restaurant in the Saddar area.
All five siblings passed away today, while their mother is in critical condition, the SP said, adding that further action would be taken after recording her statement.
Deputy Inspector General South Sharjeel Kharal said that according to the father, the family had eaten food from the said restaurant after which his wife and children fell sick. They were taken to a private hospital where the children expired. Their mother remains under treatment.
The father said that his family had also had lunch at a friend's home in Balochistan's Khuzdar area earlier in the day, before consuming chips and juice in Hub. The family hails from Quetta.
Police said they would attempt to track down samples of all the food that the family had consumed on their journey from Quetta to Karachi.
Karachi police chief Dr. Amir Ahmed Shaikh took notice of the incident and instructed the DIG South to furnish an inquiry report on the investigation into the case as well as action taken so far by the police.
DIG South told the media that 15 staff members of the restaurant have been detained and "the crime scene has been secured". A four-member team has also been formed to conduct the post-mortem examination of the deceased.
Meanwhile, Sindh Food Authority, in its report to Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, stated that the family had bought food from the restaurant and consumed it in their room at Qasr-e-Naz — a government lodge. The mother had started vomiting soon after so the husband took her to the hospital.
Upon his return to their room, the report said, he found the children and a relative unconscious. The children were pronounced dead at the hospital.
The food authority told the chief minister that it has secured food samples from both the restaurants as well as the room that the family was staying in. The samples are being sent for Five children of the same family died in Karachi on Friday after allegedly consuming unwholesome food, police told
testing, it added.
The chief minister instructed Commissioner Karachi to personally meet the affected family's father and make their travel arrangements if they want to go back to Quetta. "I am deeply saddened by this incident, and I can feel the parents' pain," Shah said. "They will get justice."
The incident comes months after two minor brothers had died in Karachi after consuming food from an upscale restaurant.
Inhalation of a highly toxic gas ‘Phosphine’ produced by a deadly fumigant ‘Aluminium Phosphide AlP’, instead of food poisoning, most likely resulted in the deaths of five children and their paternal aunt at the room of Qasr-e-Naz State Guest House on night between Thursday and Friday, forensic experts told The News on Saturday.
“A large number of pellets or tablets of the deadly fumigant Aluminium Phosphide had been placed in the room to get rid of insects and rodents. The chemical produced Phosphine gas and it is highly likely that the gas was inhaled by the children and their aunt, who died as the phosphine gas is highly toxic and lethal”, said Dr. Shakeel Ahmed, Incharge of the Industrial Analytical Center of HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry, University of Karachi.
Five children ageing between 18 months to nine year had died at a room of Qasr-e-Naz on late Thursday night or early Friday morning while their 28-year old aunt had died a few hours later at Aga Khan University Hospital in mysterious circumstances.
Initially, police and the head of the ill-fated family, Faisal had suspected food poisoning as the likely cause of death after consuming Biryani from a restaurant in Saddar but when chemical experts and investigators found the deadly fumigant in the room, they ruled out food poisoning as the possible cause of children and their aunt’s death.
A team from the HEJ Research Institute led-by Dr. Shakeel Ahmed as well as Chemical Lab of Sindh government collected over 40 samples from Qasr-e-Naz and chemical experts from both the institutions suspected that use of Aluminium Phosphide could be the most likely cause of children and their aunt’s death.
“We have started analysing the samples collected from the Qasr-e-Naz and its report would be submitted only to authorities while actual cause of death can only be ascertained after completion of autopsy and lab results. But the most apparent cause of death now appears to be inhalation of toxic gas produced by fumigant used by the guest house administration”, Dr. Shakeel Ahmed said.
He claimed that they also found heavy amount of Aluminium Phosphide from another room at Qasr-e-Naz but also found empty bottles of the insecticide from the store of the guest house and deplored that instead of cleaning the room after using the deadly fumigant, the administration gave the room to the guests, which led to the tragedy.
Eminent paediatrician and Director National Institute of Child Health (NICH) Karachi Prof. Jamal Raza said Aluminium Phosphide could be the ‘most likely cause’ of deaths of children and their aunt as compared to food poisoning.
“Food poisoning can lead to deaths but it takes time and if patients are shifted to the hospital, their lives can be saved. But in this case, by the time children were shifted to the hospital, they were already dead or died on the way to the health facility, which indicates the likelihood of poisoning”, Prof. Jamal Raza added.
An official of the Chemical Laboratory of Sindh government also confirmed that Aluminium Phosphide tablets had been used in the rooms of Qasr-e-Naz for fumigation, and one of the room was given to Quetta family without cleaning it properly, which led to inhalation of deadly gas by the children and their aunt and resulted in their immediate deaths.
“We were also part of the team that collected samples from the Qasr-e-Naz along with police and we found usage of banned fumigant which is likely cause of deaths of Mr. Faisal’s children and his sister”, an official of Sindh Chemical lab told The News.
How fumigant AlP killed children?
“Aluminium Phosphide pellets or tablets had been placed in the room of Qasr-e-Naz, which reacted with moisture in the air and produced phosphine gas. This gas is denser than air so it remained near the floor. Children were placed on the carpet and they slept immediately after eating Biryani. Phosphine gas was there in abundance, which was inhaled by the sleeping child and they died as their respiratory system collapsed”, the expert from Sindh Chemical Lab informed.
He said Aluminium Phosphide was not a household fumigant and is only used to disinfect grain in silos or in the transportation vessels, adding that it is widely used for committing suicides in the rural India while it has also caused several accidental deaths around the globe.
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