KARACHI: Two infant children and a man died when a fire erupted in a house in Gulshan-i-Ghazi within the remit of the Ittehad Town police station on Friday.

Police and rescue officials said that the house was also used as a warehouse and thermocol sheets and other flammable material were illegally stored there.

Keamari SSP Arif Aslam Rao said that apparently a short circuit had caused the fire in the house located in Ihsan Mohalla, Gulshan-i-Ghazi.

Sharing details about the victims, Ittehad Town SHO Imtiaz Husain said infants Jawad and Abbas, who were twins, and a guest of the family, identified as 25-year-old Ali Nawaz, died in the fire.

The bodies were shifted to the Burns Centre of the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) for medico-legal formalities. Police Surgeon Summaiya Syed said that they died due to suffocation.

Police say house was illegally used to store polystyrene sheets; teenager dies in Lyari cylinder blast

SSP Rao said that sheets of foam packed in aluminium foil were stored in the house, which belonged to a fisherman, due to which the fire spread rapidly and caused more damage.

A spokesperson for the Rescue-1122 said in a statement that the fire erupted at 2:59pm and it was controlled by fire tenders within 45 minutes. “The reason for the fire was thermocole and other flammable materials stocked in the house illegally,” the spokesperson added.

Teenage girl dies in cylinder explosion

A teenage girl was killed in a gas cylinder explosion in her house in the Lyari area on Friday.

An Edhi Foundation spokesperson identified the victim as 15-year-old Nafeesa Irshad.

He said that she died from the burn wounds as the cylinder blast caused a fire near Aqsa Masjid in Khadda Market.

She was shifted to the Burns Centre of the CHK where she died during treatment.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2024