LAHORE: Three officials of the contractor working on the project were arrested on January 29 in the wake of the death of a young mother and her minor daughter after their fall into an open manhole of the under-construction Data Darbar extension project.
Those arrested for their negligence were identified as project manager Asghar Sindhu, safety in-charge Daniyal and site in-charge Ahmed Nawaz.
Lahore Operations SSP Muhammad Tauqir confirmed that the suspects nominated in the FIR had been arrested.
The government also suspended from service the entire team of the Data Darbar revamp project, including Bhati Chowk remodelling, where the incident happened after the preliminary inquiry proved their negligence.
The project team members of Traffic Engineering & Transport Planning Agency who faced suspension from service included Project Director Zahid Abbas, Deputy Director Shabbir Ahmad, Assistant Director Ulfat Nawaz and Sub Engineer Abdul Razzaq.
CM lashes out at administration for negligence; says contractor should pay Rs10m compensation; family alleges torture of husband in custody
The project consultant, Nespak, was issued a show-cause notice with a recommendation to suspend the resident engineer.
The deceased who died in the incident was identified as 24-year-old Sadia, wife of Murtaza, and her 10-month-old daughter Rida Fatima.
The family had come from Shorkot to visit the shrine of Data Sahib.
CM’s response
Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz lashed out at the top administration of Lahore for its negligence.
This is for the first time in the tenure of Ms Nawaz that she grilled the top bureaucracy in front of the camera.
“This is criminal negligence… I will not spare those involved in this criminal act,” she declared. Although the CM held the Lahore commissioner, deputy commissioner, assistant commissioner as well as heads of the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) and Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) responsible for this incident, saying that they should be punished but she fell short of passing an order to suspend them from service. She was extremely furious at all those, including police officers, who misled her, information department and media regarding the incident.
“The facts were twisted to mislead us which cannot be tolerated,” the CM said and added that the whole system would have shaken had the victim woman belonged to her or those present in the meeting.
She said she was deeply saddened over this incident wondering how come the open ditch at the construction site at Bhati was not covered.
“Such an incident in the city like Lahore is not acceptable. People from across the country come at Data Darbar,” she said and ordered removal and arrest of four officers. She also lambasted the AC Lahore for never visiting the site even once.
“One crore (rupees) should be taken from the contractor and given to the aggrieved family,” she ordered.
The CM ordered that all construction sites’ open ditches and manholes be covered across Punjab forthwith. She said that construction was going on for the welfare of the people, not for taking their lives. In a tweet on X, she posted, “the loss of an innocent life in the heart of Lahore is not a mere accident, it is a crime, and it has bowed my head in shame. Instead of accepting responsibility, facts were distorted to hide incompetence. Officers who cannot even secure an open manhole have no right to hold office. I will not rest until justice is served, the blood of the two daughters is accounted for, and every responsible officer is brought to punishment”.
Video footage of the incident appears
Earlier, video footage of the incident as well as the recovery of the bodies of both young mother and daughter proved the claims of the LDA, Wasa and Rescue 1122 wrong. All official authorities, instead of looking for the victims, had termed the report wrong.
Sadia’s body was found near the Outfall Road at 1am while the minor daughter’s body was found at Saggian, at 1pm, about 17 hours after the incident.
The family belonging to village Allahyar Jutta of Shorkot was visiting Data Darbar when the incident happened. Sadia and Rida had reportedly fallen into the open manhole after they got off from a rickshaw.
Sadia’s husband Murtaza had called the Rescue 1122 as soon as his wife and daughter fell into the manhole at about 7:30pm but they stopped the rescue operation, suspecting the man of telling a lie. The police went a step ahead and arrested Murtaza and two other male members of the family.
The family alleged that the police had tortured Murtaza, accusing him of committing the murder of his wife. He was released six hours later.
In a statement, the emergency service claimed that its “diving team had recovered the girl’s body from Saggian”.
In the statement, he claimed that the rescue operation had continued “without any breaks”.
FIR registered against officials
The FIR was registered by Sadia’s father, Sajid Hussain, with the Bhati Gate Police Station. In the complaint, Sadia’s father said his son had received a call from his son-in-law, Murtaza, informing him about the incident.
“Upon receiving this information, I, my son … my son-in-law … and my friend … reached Data Darbar at about 2:30am.
“There, my son-in-law … informed us that Sadia and Rida had fallen into the said manhole”. The complainant named three individuals in the FIR, construction project’s project manager, safety in-charge and site in-charge.
Rescue teams had doubted Murtaza and raised doubts about the authenticity of the incident, claiming that the water level at the time of the operation was just two feet deep and a person could not drown in it.
The role of the project managers remained questionable. The under-construction sewerage pipeline was left uncovered, despite the fact that hundreds of people visiting Data Darbar were walking around in the area.
In the early hours of Thursday, Lahore Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Operations Faisal Kamran, when asked about various reports about the water flow not being fast enough to carry away a person, had said, “You should also look at the time difference. When it happened, the water flow was fast; those were peak hours.” He added that the water flow receded as the night progressed.
Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2026
