KARACHI, April 14: Two people including a three-year-old girl were killed in a fire that broke out in huts in Gulistan-i-Jauhar on Thursday. Hospital sources said that charred bodies of Shabana, 3, and Nasreen, 28, were brought to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre by the Edhi ambulances in the afternoon. The incident occurred at a 240 sq-yards vacant plot in Block 12 Gulistan-i-Jauhar. People from the neighborhood told Dawn that six families of the same clan from D.G Khan were living in those huts.

Nasreen was mother of two children while Shabana was the youngest amongst her five brothers and sisters. Almost all the male members of the families were at work when the fire broke out.

The cause of the fire could not be ascertained, but the people of the area said that the fire brigade people reached the spot half an hour later. According to them, Rangers from their nearby camp office were the first ones to reach the spot and started the rescue work.

They in effect, called the police and other rescue services at the spot, said Noor Mohammad , who was present at the scene of this mishap.

He pointed out that even after several attempts from his cellphone he failed to get any response from the 15.

“The fire spread so quickly that the passage leading into the plot was blocked by the raging fire, we tried to enter into the plot to pull out the trapped persons from the roof tops of the neighbouring houses but in vain,” said Noor Mohammad.

Ghulam Ali, a resident of the locality, pointed out that it was the 13th or 14th incident of fire “Such fires keep breaking out in different blocks of the Gulistan-e-Jauhar.