ISLAMABAD: At least two people were killed and 85 others were injured in the wake of celebratory gunfire in Karachi on the eve of Pakistan’s 77th Independence Day, local media reported on Monday, citing officials.
Pakistan celebrated 76 years of its independence from British colonial rule on Monday. The South Asian country came into being after the British partitioned the subcontinent August 14, 1947, into two separate nations, Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India.
Amid the festivities, some individuals across the South Asian nation resorted to gunfire, making the joyous occasion a dark reminder of the ineffective implementation of the law and a lack of awareness for families of the victims of the wrongful practice.
“A 25-year-old woman was traveling along with her family on a motorbike and was hit by a bullet fired from an unknown direction when she was passing through the People’s Chowrangi,” Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported, citing Jamshed Quarters police station in-charge, Gul Baig.
She was taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC) where the doctors pronounced her dead.
In another incident, a man sleeping on the roof of his house in Lyari’s Aath Chowk was shot dead by a stray bullet, according to the report.
Thirty-two people with gunshot wounds were brought to the JPMC for treatment, with one youth among them in critical condition due to a bullet wound on his head, according to Police Surgeon Dr. Summaiya Syed. The injured, aged between 12 and 55 years, included eight women.
The Abbasi Shaheed Hospital also received 32 people with bullet injuries, while another 21 were brought to the Civil Hospital Karachi for treatment for similar wounds, Syed said.
