PESHAWAR, April 17: A cloth market at Ghanta Ghar in the walled city was completely gutted causing loss of millions ofrupees apparently due to short circuit early on Saturday morning.

The fire erupted at 4:10am and engulfed the whole market owned by Malik Abid Hafeez and was extinguished by the city firefighters by 8:00am, eyewitnesses and shopkeepers told Dawn. During the four hour-fire 22 cloth shacks, five shops and two godowns of the market were completely destroyed, they added.

The cause of fire was said to be power failure which occurred at 3am. When the power supply was restored an hour later, the sparking in the transformer caused the short circuit.

Later on, the shopkeepers and the area residents went to the C-Division police station and lodged a complaint against the Peshawar Electricity Supply Company (Pesco) for not replacing the old transformer of the area.

Intheircomplaint, they maintainedthatthe shopkeepers and residents had many times in the past informed the Pesco authorities about the old transformer and wornout electricity wiring in the area. But the authorities concerned turn deaf ear to their complaint which caused short circuit on Saturday and destroyed the market, they said.