KARACHI: Over 440 vehicles were destroyed in a huge fire erupted in the bushes on the premises of Nazarat, also called the central pool for unclaimed vehicles, near Aziz Bhatti Park on Sunday, police said.

Deputy Commissioner-East Raja Tariq Hussain said that the fire broke out at about 9:50am setting public property ablaze.

A statement issued from the Chief Minister House said that “many bikes and other vehicles have been damaged”.

It said that the fire had been extinguished and cooling process started. No causalities were reported in the incident.

Late at evening, an official source told Dawn that the report about estimates of damages to the vehicles generated by the DC-East revealed that “total 400 motorbikes, 40 cars, one bus and a couple of rickshaws” were destroyed in the fire.

Chief Fire Officer Mubeen Ahmed told Dawn that six fire tenders managed to control the blaze within three hours.

He said that there was no boundary wall, no security arrangement for the vehicles worth millions of rupees, and no fire safety system despite the Police in their initial probe ruled out the possibility of any sabotage.

SSP-East Syed Abdul Rahim Sherazi, quoting firemen and witnesses, said that a spark from a high-tension wire triggered the blaze.

However, he added they were waiting for the final report of firemen to this effect.

Murad orders inquiry

Sindh Chief Secretary Dr Sohail Rajput told Dawn that an inquiry was ordered on the instructions of Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah to ascertain the causes of the fire and fix responsibility.

He appointed Services Secretary Muhammad Hanif Channa as the inquiry officer to conduct the probe into the incident of fire and submit a report within a week.

According to a notification, the terms of references of the inquiry would be “to enquire the causes of fire incident and to fix responsibility on individuals/organisations for negligence or for wilful commission of offence of putting public property on fire’. The inquiry officer had been directed “to propose recommendations to avoid occurrence of such incidents in future”.

Fire officials said that there were bushes where ‘old’ vehicles had been parked apparently without any proper care or supervision.

Published in Dawn, June 13th, 2022