KARACHI: Police on Thursday registered a case against the owner of the Regent Plaza Hotel and others on charges of manslaughter as 12 people, including five doctors, were killed and over 80 wounded in the fire in the hotel situated on Sharea Faisal in the early hours of Monday morning, officials said.

The Saddar police registered an FIR (355/2016) under Sections 322 (punishment for qatl-bis-sabab) 337-A (punishment of shajjah), 427 (mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The case has been registered against the hotel chief executive officer Muzaffar Baweja, managing director Zubair Baweja, chief security officer retired Major Saad, chief engineer Arshad Mughal and supervising engineer Saleem Pervez.

Karachi-South SSP Saqib Ismail Memon told Dawn that the case was registered following an inquiry by the police in which the ‘criminal negligence’ of the hotel management was found.

Sharing gist of the findings of the inquiry, SSP Memon said that the hotel management did not follow fire security manual.

As fire alarms were not installed, there were no ‘heat sensors’ as well in the kitchen from where the fire erupted and smoke engulfed the whole building. Furthermore, masks were not available in the hotel for saving lives.

The officer said the hotel management was supposed to provide ‘salvage team’, but again they did not follow this provision enshrined in the security manual. Moreover, a fire security squad duly trained by the civil defence department was not available in the hotel to deal with such eventuality as per the manual.

“Criminal negligence of the hotel management was also evident from the fact that they did not stop the gas supply,” claimed the SSP South.

Meanwhile, a police spokesperson in a statement said that the hotel management did not only follow the fire security plan, but they also did not inform the fire brigade about the fire incident ‘on time’.

Not only this, the hotel management also did not inform the police station concerned about the blaze on time due to which 12 people lost their lives.

“It has emerged during the inquiry that the said persons/suspects committed criminal negligence by not taking steps to control the fire on time owing to which the precious lives were lost,” according to the police statement.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2016