Sepa rules out air pollution as cause after another death in Keamari

Another child has died in Ali Muhammad Goth of District Keamari in Karachi, raising the death toll of those who have passed away due to unexplained reasons in the area since January 10 to 19, according to officials, while the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) has ruled out any environmental cause behind the deaths of the children and the adults in the affected area.

“We’re performing the autopsy of three-year-old Abdul Haleem to ascertain the cause of his death. He had been sick for a few days and died last night in Ali Muhammad Goth of the Mawach Goth area of District Keamari,” Police Surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed told The News on Tuesday.

Dr Summaiya said they had requested the authorities for the body of any person who died in Ali Muhammad Goth to perform their autopsy to ascertain the cause of their death because the authorities were clueless about the circumstances that led to the death of 19 people in the area over three weeks.

Sepa claimed in its report on Tuesday that the “results obtained from the laboratory do not indicate excess of any parameter in the air quality which could lead to casualties from inhaling any toxic gas”.

Signed by Sepa Director General Naeem Mughal, the report said the “environmental and health impacts were never being overlooked; it impacts on the health of living organisms. The recent incident in the Ali Muhammad village has never been linked with air pollution or the presence of toxic gases in the surrounding vicinity”.