LAHORE: Shafiqabad police arrested on Saturday the owner of Ashraf Garment Factory on Ravi Road for violating building control laws.

Three labourers were burnt to death when a fire erupted in the factory at Goal Bagh on Thursday. As the flames engulfed the double-storey building, workers had no exit point to flee the ablaze.

Jahanzaib, 40, and Javed, 22, were asleep when the fire erupted in the building. Another worker, Shahid, 20, tried to rescue the entrapped colleagues, but also suffered burns. The three later died.

Provincial Minister for Labour and Human Resource Raja Ashfaq Sarwar had taken notice of the incident and directed District Officer Chaudhry Nasrullah to hold an inquiry into the incident and submit its report. He also announced Rs900,000 for the heirs of each worker.

The initial investigation revealed that the fire erupted due to a short circuit. The factory was sealed for fact findings.

Textile Powerlooms and Garment Worker Federation Secretary General Niaz Khan said there have been no labour inspections of the factories to check and ensure safety of the workers.

He said there were more than 5,000 factories in residential areas of the city where fire fighting vehicles could not reach for rescue service due to narrow streets.

He said the labour department had only registered 1,800 factories of the city and without registering all factories, they could not work for the welfare of the workers.

He said most of the factories were working without any fire control system which showed the labour department had no inspection mechanism. The apathy keeps on killing workers.

In September, three labourers died when a boiler exploded in a manufacturing unit of a bakery in Kahna. In June, one worker was burnt in a steel factory in Baghbanpura, while in May, seven people working on the Orange Line Metro Train project died when a wall fell on them in Manawan.

These incidents had a small number of causalities but 45 workers had died when a three-storey factory collapsed in Sunder Industrial Estate last year.

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2016