New Delhi: A three-year-old boy died after falling into a manhole in Karachi. And the city authorities couldn’t take the body out for over 15 hours—drainage maps were missing, and there was a lack of proper equipment. Now, angry Pakistanis are calling Karachi “a rotting mess” after 17 years of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) rule.
They are now demanding answers from the state government: where does the money for infrastructure go? The child had slipped into a manhole around 11 pm Pakistani time on Sunday.
Due to a lack of machinery and sewerage maps, local people themselves had to make arrangements to continue the excavation. The child’s parents reportedly paid for the equipment.
‘It seems construction and destruction of roads has become one of the most profitable business in Karachi with billions of rupees either go in waste or in pockets due to substandard material, incompetence, corruption and zero accountability. Even newly constructed roads hardly survived more than a year,” journalist Mazhar Abbas wrote on X.
An angry X user called it ‘murder by negligence” and wrote, “This is not an accident. This is murder by negligence. This is what happens when Karachi’s governance fails again and again.”
Pakistan television host and anchor Waseem Badami went on a rant on YouTube, pointing out how, despite multiple such incidents in the past years, no concrete action has been taken at all.
“If you can’t cover your manholes, at least cover yourselves with shame,” he angrily said. He also called out the mismanagement of Karachi authorities, who apparently had earlier promised the setting up of a factory to make covers for manholes. Badami also noted how the mayor had, in an explanation, said that drug addicts steal manhole covers.
“It is now the responsibility of the city’s people to argue and get into fights with drug addicts in order to avail their civic amenities.”
Security analysts chimed in solidarity. “A 4-year-old child falls into a gutter in Karachi, and there’s no 1122-level rescue system in Pakistan’s largest, richest metro. What a tragedy, what a failure. Karachi deserves better. PPP’s criminal neglect remains a curse for the city, the province and the country,” security analyst Ali K.Chishti wrote on X.
Pakistani actress Mishi Khan, in a video on Instagram, said that the ruling PPP government has turned Karachi into a warzone. “These incidents have become common. The money that is given for infrastructure— where exactly is it spent?”
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Politics and performance
The incident has led to protests. Residents blocked roads, burnt tyres, and reportedly even damaged media vans. Mayor Murtaza Wahab assured action, but the citizens were not convinced. Most want Wahab to hand over his resignation and acknowledge his incompetence.
Wahab drew even more ire due to his comments in a press conference post the incident, where he said people were unnecessarily “politicising it”.
“Murtaza Wahab calls people’s anger and road blockages “ishtial angezi,” telling them not to ‘do politics’ over a child who fell into an open manhole and died, but what he means is, don’t question the system or those in power whose negligence creates conditions for such incidents,” X user Zainab wrote.
Wahab has constantly been mired in controversy over a lack of governance. Earlier in August, in an interview with TV host Tabish Hashmi, the mayor was grilled on the city’s crumbling infrastructure and was called out across social media for playing a blame game instead of addressing the concerns of citizens.