WORLD NEWS | Four elderly people die while collecting free flour in Pakistan’s Punjab: officials

Lahore, March 25 (PTI) At least four elderly people have died in the past few days while trying to collect free flour from government distribution points in Pakistan’s Punjab province, officials said on Saturday.

Deaths were reported as some flocked to government distribution points after the cash-strapped Pakistani government rolled out a free flour program for the poor, especially in Punjab province, in response to soaring inflation.

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A senior Punjab government official told the Press Trust of India: “In the past few days, four elderly people died while collecting free flour in the cities of Multan, Muzaffargarh and Faisalabad and several fainted.”

He said the incident happened due to the lack of facilities and the influx of people at the distribution points set up by the government to distribute free flour to citizens. “Two of them died from the stampede, and the other two died from exhaustion from long queues,” he said.

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On the other hand, the police also used baton attacks on people who asked for flour, forcing them to queue.

There has been criticism of the district administration for lack of proper arrangements at these distribution points and the insufficient supply of flour.

Most of them arrived at the flour point early in the morning and had to queue for a long time.

Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Justice Instigation (PTI) party condemned the deaths and criticized the policy.

PTI Punjab Chairman Dr Yasmin Rashid told PTI, “This is Pakistan today where people are dying for free flour. It is because of the bad policy of this looters and thieves government. “

Seeing serious mismanagement of free flour distribution points, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has started visiting these points.

On Saturday, he visited the city of Sargoda and inspected free flour points.

Sharif checked the quality and weight of the flour sacks and talked with people.

He also directed district administrations to provide special convenience for the elderly at flour distribution points.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)