PESHAWAR, June 17: At least 70 shops and cabins were reduced to ashes on Thursday morning after a fire engulfed the Kabari Bazaar on the Jinnah Park Road near the railway tracks here.

It was learnt that one of the shops in the Kabari Bazaar caught fire at 6:30am that later spread all over the market within a few minutes. The fire-fighters managed to extinguish the fire by 8am. No loss of life was reported as all shops were closed at the time, an eyewitness said.

The president of Anjuman Ittehad-i-Kabaryan, Sher Zaman Bacha, said that at least 70 shops and cabins had been gutted in the fire, causing losses amounting to more than Rs5.8 million to the shopkeepers, adding that it was the fourth such incident in the past 12 years in market.

He said that Pesco officials had provided electricity connections to shops directly from a transformer located in the Town-1 offices. He said that there was no pole between the transformer and the shops, adding that lose wiring had caused the fire.

KILLED: Three members of a family were killed in cross-fire between a son and his father, said police officials. Mian Sajjad Khan of the Surizai village located near Peshawar, told the Badhber police that he was at the residence of his maternal uncle when his cousin, Mian Mustafa, came inside the house and opened fire on his father, Syed Kamal Shah.