KARACHI: “The fire is in the godown somewhere up there and the fire tenders and firefighters have been trying to put it out for five hours now without much success,” said Mohammad Shaukat, a Chhipa in-charge watching the smoke coming out from the closed gates of a garment factory in Landhi here on Saturday afternoon.

Meanwhile, senior factory staff with surgical masks ordered their guards to keep the gates shut. Those who wanted to get close or go inside to find out if any of their relatives were trapped in there were roughly pushed away.

“Go away! Are you from the media? Media is not welcome. Go away,” a guard at the side gate asked anyone who tried to enter the premises.

“The factory people have been most uncooperative,” said a fireman standing outside. “They only open the gates a wee bit, just enough for the fire engines to move inside and then shut them immediately. At first they were not even volunteering any information about how the fire started,” said the frustrated firefighter.

“Anyway, it is a big third category fire coming from the warehouse and everything in there has been destroyed,” he said. “We can only be grateful that no one was inside when the fire first broke out as it was a prayer break then,” he added.

But several people gathered near the factory who said they resided in its back lanes were being suffocated by the smoke coming out of the building. “Two women who live in Dawood Chali here in Tauheedabad, just behind the factory, inhaled too much smoke and fainted. They had to be rushed to hospital,” said one bystander. The Chhipa in-charge also confirmed it.

“Please come and see how we are suffering due to all this,” requested, Abdul Wahab, a resident of the area.

There was far more smoke behind the building where the people resided but the narrow winding lanes offered no provision for the fire tenders to reach there. “I live right behind the factory wall. The smoke started coming out from the factory at 1.15pm choking and forcing us to come out of our homes to the main road in order to be able to breathe some clean air. But the factory staff is manhandling us and pushing us away,” complained Kanin Shah, chairman of Tauheedabad residents’ committee.

“We have been treated very shabbily ever since this factory came about some six to seven years ago. We are all Pakhtoons in Dawood Chali and they call us thieves. Our people couldn’t even find employment with them but now when we are suffocating due to all this smoke they should at least help us.

“The firemen have been trying to put out the fire but have been unable to do that so far. If any of the factory walls collapses now, it will fall on our homes,” said Abdul Hakeem, another resident.

Just then a little girl ran out from a home with her unconscious baby brother. “He has inhaled too much smoke. He just blacked out!” she informed the others, asking them to help her.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2014