North Karachi disaster:

Sindhi Press Dec 12
North Karachi disaster: multidimensional probe needed
Kawish
Karachites had hardly gone to sleep when fire swept through a shanty settlement claiming at least 42 lives including 20 children, leaving 25 other critical injured. The government has announced a compensation for injured and the dead and also to initiate a probe into the causes of the incident.

Karachi people have witnessed many a fire incidents including of PNSC building and Revenue department building in Sindh secretariat. They also saw the fire flames on April 9 last year which swept the sixth floor of Tahir Plaza and experienced the smell of burning of human bodies and explosive material. But the havoc created by the fire that broke out Thursday night claiming over 42 lives made another history. The causes of fire could not be ascertained as yet. However it has left a number of unanswered questions, which forms basis of the investigation.

Divergent opinion of officials and elected representatives about the causes of fire also demands a multidimensional probe into the incident. The statement of a Sindh government official seems very funny, in which he said, some inmates gathered at the fire due to extreme cold, and fire caught shawl of one of them which engulfed the entire shanty settlement by the raging flames. How fire caught to a Shawl would burn to the ground within hours the entire settlement leaving no escape route? Another official has served up a familiar excuse — he believes that the fire was sparked by a power wire that fell on the huts. This version also seems to be too lame. If fire was sparked by a power wire that fell on the huts, it also leaves opportunities to escape and would not result into high number of deaths. Some circles are finding similarity with the fire incident of Tahir Plaza, where chemical was used in the fire.

The possibility of a deliberate attempt to set the settlement on fire cannot be ruled out as the land on which the squatters lived was valuable and might have been under the eyes of the city's powerful land mafia. There was a dispute and the mafia wanted to get it vacated. This should also be investigated. The government is aware that there are criminal gangs and mercenary killers operating in this metropolitan city, who use to get vacated the lands and plots on behest of land mafia. This could be an act of such gang.

Probe of earlier incidents was closed with the traditional ‘findings” and excuses that fire was caused due to fall of electric wire or it was accidental. There seems to be little hope that this incident would be thoroughly probe and it would go beyond the traditional findings of short circuit or accidental.

Providing compensation and alternate plots to the victim families is laudable, as announced by the government. But there is dire need to find the real causes which resulted into death of 42 people that can not compensated. Further, if there is some mafia behind it, it would continue to work and we will witness some more such incident. Therefore it demands a multidimensional probe to expose and punish the culprits. – (Jan 10)

Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi