ISLAMABAD: The recurring incidents of fire at the H-9 Weekly Bazaar in the federal capital have exposed safety gaps besides causing heavy financial losses to traders and civic agencies.
Sources point out that the failure of city managers to ensure the “dawn-to-dusk” policy has turned the H-9 Weekly Bazaar into a permanent shopping area. They said stallholders keep their goods on-site against the rules, posing a permanent fire risk.
It was further reported that a fire tender was also missing when a blaze broke out on Tuesday.
The recent fire, which engulfed over 374 stalls out of a total 2,749, once again left stallholders in distress, with garments worth millions of rupees reduced to ashes. This was the fifth major fire incident in the bazaar over the past nine years.
Although the cause of the latest fire has yet to be determined by an inquiry committee, concerns remain that further incidents could occur if proper measures are not taken, as vendors store their goods in stalls like warehouses and cover them with tarpaulins that are highly flammable.
A source said that whenever a fire breaks out, it spreads rapidly due to the absence of the practice of removing goods at the end of the day. “Stalls, particularly those selling clothes, are filled like permanent shops, and when fire breaks out, it spreads quickly,” the source said.
The source added that earlier stallholders used solar panels, uninterrupted power supply (UPS) systems and backup generators, but this practice was stopped last year. Despite this, another major fire incident still occurred, raising serious concerns.
It was also pointed out that the fire tender was not present at the site when the fire started. “Had the fire tender been present, the fire could have been controlled to some extent. The fire started at 9:47pm, while the fire tender reached at 9:56pm, by which time significant damage had already occurred,” the source said.
It is relevant to note that, according to standard operating procedures (SOPs), a fire tender was supposed to remain present on-site round the clock. However, it reportedly left Gate No. 5 of the bazaar at 8:37pm, and the fire broke out at 9:47pm, sources added.
The bazaar operates as a three-day market, whereas other bazaars, such as G-6 and G-11, function as one-day markets where stallholders remove their goods in the evening.
“These are temporary stalls, not shopping malls. MCI charges Rs1,200 per month per stall, so it should function as a temporary market under a dawn-to-dusk arrangement,” officials said. They added that due to this arrangement, the value of stalls has risen to millions in the open market, despite low official charges for limited business days.
MCI officials said that after a previous fire incident and on the direction of a standing committee, the Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA) issued a notification in September 2014 directing stallholders to remove their belongings after every bazaar. However, stallholders challenged the notification in the Islamabad High Court, and a single bench restrained the DMA from implementing it.
“Because of the IHC order, we cannot ask stallholders to take back their belongings daily,” said an official, adding that the MCI has filed an intra-court appeal against the decision.
On the other hand, Malik Asif, general secretary of the stallholders’ union, acknowledged that tarpaulins are highly flammable. However, he said that removing belongings daily was not a solution. “We should be allowed shutter shops in the entire bazaar. Many stalls already have shutters, but MCI is not allowing others,” he said, adding that the latest fire could have been deliberate and should be investigated scientifically.
Meanwhile, an MCI official said there is no concept of shutter shops in weekly bazaars, as sufficient commercial markets already exist in Islamabad for that purpose.
Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2026