Grief and anger as relatives identify victims at JPMC

Shazia Hasan

The father of one of the blast victims, Shahzad, being brought out of the mortuary of the JPMC by his colleagues on Friday. — Fahim Siddiqi/ White Star

KARACHI: There were four bodies in the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) mortuary two of which were identified soon after being brought there on Friday afternoon.

Two young men sat weeping quietly on the bench outside the mortuary. “They are in no condition to speak to anyone. Their brother, Sajid Elahi, has been identified as one of the dead. Another elder brother is inside with the body,” said a friend trying to console the young men.

“We are residents of Delhi Colony. My brother had gone to say his Friday prayers at Jama Masjid Faizan-i-Ilahi. We were at home. I was dozing when the blast jolted everyone in the house. Our mother tried Sajid’s number but got no response. His phone was off. That’s when we hurried to the site of the blast,” said the victim’s elder brother, Sohail Ahmed.

“But this is where we found him,” he broke down looking around inside the morgue.

Shiraz Ali, a Chhipa ambulance driver there, said that he had brought in the body of Shahzad Hussain, a young man. “One side of the body is ridden with ball bearings,” he said.

Shahzad was identified by his colleagues who then informed his father. “He is ... he was ... our assistant manager at the Bareeze shop in Clifton,” said one of his colleagues, Mohammad Fareed Khan. “He usually ate with us at the shop but today he had a craving for something from outside. He was out on a lunch break at the time of blast. Our entire building shook from it,” he added.

A few other colleagues of Shahzad were coming towards the mortuary with an elderly man. Two supported him by putting their arms around his shoulders. “I run a vegetable business at Guru Mandir,” said Ali Hussain, the father. “I got a call from my son’s colleagues and rushed here. I haven’t told anyone at home. They know nothing. Shahzad is the third of my six sons,” he said, his eyes brimming with tears.

Another distressed individual outside the morgue was screaming in frustration. “How do you expect us to identify the body when you are not even letting us see it?” he cried.

He was referring to the only woman’s body in the mortuary. The man was there with another who claimed his wife was missing. “We live in the same house. I live on the upper portion and he and his wife are on the ground floor. We have just retrieved a purse and a mobile phone from the hospital’s emergency department that belongs to Bhabi but there is only one woman among the injured there and her husband is with her right now. That leaves the dead woman. We are here to identify her but aren’t being allowed to see the body until we prove that we know her. How do we do that?” The neighbour, Uzair Tehseen, questioned.

The husband looking for his missing wife was finding it very difficult to form words into sentences. A while later he managed to mumble something about her wearing a printed yellow shirt with white shalwar when going out of the house that morning. But the dead body was clad in pink and grey shalwar kameez. A piece from a rickshaw jutted out from her remains. “No that can’t be her,” the helpful neighbour concluded when informed about the details of her clothing. “It’s not her,” he said to the worried man with him looking for his missing wife.

Meanwhile, strict security outside the JPMC emergency department prevented almost everyone save VIPs and politicians from going inside. A man holding his injured nephew in his arms cursed the hospital authorities. “I need to take him inside but just because he is not one of the bomb blast injured, we can’t go in,” the man complained.

A man with a bandaged leg was being carried away on a stretcher by his relatives. “God has been kind. He saved my life today,” said the man, Waqar Feroz, who added that he was just passing through the place on his motorbike at the time of the blast.

Another injured and semi-conscious man was being shifted to the ward. “His name is Mahmood Kazmi. We work at the CM House,” said his colleague who declined to disclose his own name.

Sindh Health Minister Dr Sagheer Ahmed while addressing the media with Dr Seemin Jamali, head of the JPMC emergency department, said that they had been hearing all kinds of things that perhaps a car in some passing convoy was the target or the mosque was the target. “But only experts can tell us more regarding the matter. Still, the casualties and most of the injured happened to be common pedestrians coming out of the nearby mosques after saying their Friday prayers,” he said.

Dr Jamali said they had received some 30 wounded of which five were critical and four dead of whom one was female.