One person was killed and eight others injured during a stampede for free flour in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Charsadda on Thursday, the first day of the holy month of Ramazan.
The price of basic food items has rocketed in recent months, with inflation at a near 50 year-high as the country grapples with a balance of payments crisis that has seen it forced back into negotiations with the International Monetary Fund. “Nine people were trampled and were taken to hospital where one person died,” said Muhammad Arif, police chief for Charsadda.
Arif said that hundreds of people gathered at the local market for the handouts, one of hundreds of distribution points set up by the government during Ramazan. Millions of low-income families across the country are registered under the scheme.
In a nearby district, a man died and four others were injured when a wall they were sitting on collapsed as crowds amassed for free flour.
Authorities told a foreign news agency it was not clear why the wall collapsed.
Pakistan’s finances have been wrecked by years of financial mismanagement and political instability — a situation exacerbated by a global energy crisis and devastating floods that left a third of the country under water last year. The nation is deeply in debt, and needs to introduce tough tax and utility price increases to unlock another tranche of a $6.5 billion IMF bail-out and avoid defaulting.
Meanwhile, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Caretaker Chief Minister Mohammad Azam Khan took notice of irregularities in the distribution of free flour among deserving people and directed officials to look into the matter.
In a statement, he directed all district administrations to ensure uninterrupted delivery of flour to people across the province during the month of Ramazan.
The incident sounds alarm bells at the haphazard situation in the country as this is the third such incident across the South Asian. A previous incident occurred in Muzaffargarh, where an elderly woman died during a stampede earlier this week.
She fell down due to the stampede by the crowd pushing to get flour bags and passed away on the spot.
The first incident occurred in Faisalabad in a similar stampede at a flour distribution point where an elderly citizen died in the akin tragic incident.
The deceased identified as Muhammad Kaleem was found unconscious at the park’s main gate. He was rushed to the medical facility where he breathed his last.
