At least nine people, including five children, of the same family were killed on Wednesday when a rocket launcher’s shell exploded at a house when the kids were playing with the ammunition in Pakistan’s Sindh province, police said. Kashmore-Kandhkot Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rohil Khosa said children found a rocket shell while playing on the ground and brought it home where it exploded, killing nine people, including five children, two women, and two men, of the same family. He said besides the casualties five others were injured in the explosion and rushed to hospital. “This is an area on the riverine belt and the rocket shell must have been left there by dacoits who hide out deep into the riverine belt areas,” Khoso said.

The SSP said the police had reached the site and further investigation was underway and an “emergency” had been declared at the Kandhkot Civil Hospital. Pakistan Peoples Party’s Chairman and former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said in a tweet that the riverine areas of Sindh and Punjab had become a safe haven to many criminal gangs and urged the government to clear the region from such

elements.

Sindh Chief Minister Justice Maqbool Baqar has sought a report from the provincial inspector general on how a rocket launcher reached the Zangi Subzwai Goth village in Kashmore district’s Kandhkot tehsil of the province, Dawn News reported. “Was any stock of weapons being smuggled to the Kutcha areas? Are there enablers of the dacoits present in the goth (village)?”, he asked.

Expressing his grief over the incident, Baqar directed the inspector general to submit a “detailed report” into the incident.