SHEIKHUPURA, Feb 27: Fire destroyed three markets near the Narang Mandi railway station, some 70 kilometres from here, early on Thursday morning.

Goods worth millions of rupees were reduced to ashes in around 200 kiosks, makeshift stalls and shops in the markets set up on railways land.

Two transformers, main power supply wires and some part of unused railway track was also damaged.

Eyewitnesses said fire broke out in a kiosk at 3am and flames engulfed all the shops, stalls and kiosks within minutes.

Dr Shaukat told this correspondent that some passers-by informed him at around 3.30 am that his clinic had caught fire. Flames had engulfed the three markets when he came out of his house, located near the railway station.

The doctor approached officials of the local administration who rang up fire stations in Sheikhupura, Gujranwala and Lahore. The fire fighters, who reached the spot after two-and-a-half hours, could put up the flames after eight hours with the help of army and police officials besides local volunteers.

The exact cause of the fire could not be ascertained.

The station master of Narang Mandi railway station said that score of drug addicts took shelter in the kiosks of the markets during night. “Anyone of them might have thrown a burning match which caused the fire,” he said.

The Narang Mandi police said a short circuit might have been the reason because most electricity wires in the markets were seen hanging on bamboo sticks.

Representatives of the traders held local administration and Wapda responsible for the damage. They said that the local administration did not make any arrangement to extinguish fire despite repeated requests by traders. They said Wapda’s local authorities too did not pay heed to their complaints.