SEHWAN SHARIF: At least 14 pilgrims have died of suffocation due to severe weather and drowning in two days of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar Urs in Sindh.
According to rescue sources, at least six pilgrims who came in the Urs on Sundaylost their lives to the heatwave, due to suffocation , heat stroke and shortage of drinking water while one pilgrim drowned while taking bath in the Bagh Lal river. Besides this eight people died yesterday in which five became victim to heat stroke whereas three of them drowned in the river. Most of the people who died hailed from Punjab whose dead bodies have been sent to their native towns. The 763rd Urs of Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar started on Saturday. Thousands of devotees, mostly from Sindh and Punjab, thronged the shrine.
INP