RAWALPINDI - A 55-year-old woman was killed in a stampede Friday morning during Zakat distribution outside the house of a philanthropist at Harley Street, the area of Police Station (PS) RA Bazaar.
Rescue 1122 shifted the woman to a nearby hospital where doctors pronounced the woman as dead. The deceased identified as Nusrat Bibi wife of Meharban Khan from Girja Road. According to sources, many poor people were gathered outside the house of one Haji Gulfam, a philanthropist, who had arranged distribution of Zakat. Suddenly, a stampede occurred when the people including women started pushing each other in a bid to get Zakat first. As a result, Nusrat Bibi fell down and went unconscious owing to suffocation, eyewitnesses added.
Sources said that the philanthropist had arranged Zakat distribution for selected people but the number of women that turned up had swelled to much more than that. “A large number of women arrived and street beggars and gypsies also joined them,” a police official stated. This rush turned into stampede, which claimed life of a woman, he said.