Father, three young sons crushed by train in Karachi

Karachi -A man and his three young sons were crushed by a train on the outskirts of Karachi on Monday. The man and one of his sons died on the spot while the two younger boys were severely wounded, officials and eyewitnesses told to media.
They had gone out to collect firewood near the Bin Qasim Railway Station. A neighbour has blamed the deaths on the gas cuts that Pakistan has faced this summer.
Pakistan Railways Police constable Muhammad Ansar Raza was on duty at the Bin Qasim Railway Station when he learnt that Karachi Express had hit a few people at some distance from the platform at 5pm.
Raza ran towards the point of the accident and saw a man and a boy lying severely wounded next to the railway tracks. Two young children had fallen, after being crushed by the train, in a nullah that passes under the railway line.
Raza says the children were crying for help. People who had gathered at the spot by then rescued them from the nullah. They had been severely wounded.
The man who was later identified as Ghaffar s/o Arban, 40, and the boy Muneer s/o Ghaffar, 12 died at the spot. The younger boys had lost limbs, one an arm, the other a leg.
They were identified as Tanveer, 8, and Naseer, 6.
The bodies and the wounded children were moved to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) by ambulance.
They were residents of nearby Sabo Gabol Goth.
Engineer Aamir Khan Niazi, who is their neighbour, told SAMAA Digital that Ghaffar — father of four sons and two daughters — was a push-cart vendor.
Niazi says on Monday evening he was at his home when one of Ghaffar’s daughters came to him and said that her father and brothers had gone out to stack firewood, but had not returned.
Niazi recalled seeing tickers on a TV screen that reported that a train had crushed a man and children near Bin Qasim Railway station.
He ran towards Bin Qasim Railway Station where he saw a large number of people gathered near the platform.
Ghaffar and his son, Muneer, succumbed to their wounds while people were trying to pull out two of the younger children from the nullah, says Niazi.
The train that hit them left without stopping, he said.
Ghaffar was a poor man who sold ice in the summer and vegetables in the winter to earn a living, he added.
Niazi blamed the deaths on gas supply cuts.
He said residents of Sabo Gabol Goth were facing load-shedding of gas and Ghaffar along with his sons had gone to stack firewood that was to be used for cooking food at home.
He said the eldest of Ghaffar’s sons works as a labourer at the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) and he was on work at the time of the accident.