Sources in the Sindh government and officials said the fire in one of the barracks of the old secretariat building – believed to be more than a century old – destroyed over a dozen rooms, almost all of them containing files and bundles of documents, on the ground and first floors of the colonial-era structure.
The fire, which broke out between 10am and 10.30am on the first floor of the building facing the MPAs Hostel and the Pakistan Secretariat, swept through all the rooms on the floor and reached the ground floor in the twinkling of an eye.
The outbreak of Thursday’s fire coincided with the start of two-day provincial holidays on account of Eid Miladun Nabi (Peace be upon him). Conspiracy theorists insisted that it was no coincidence that major blazes hit important government buildings – such the PNSC building and the historical Radio Pakistan building – in the city on holidays.
Fire tenders, which reached the site almost 40 minutes after the fire had erupted, took more than three hours to put out the spreading flames and the ancient structure made the job a little harder as the firefighters took extra care to prevent further losses during the operation.
A department official denied any delay in the fire department’s response to the complaint, and sources suspected a deliberate delay in calling for a rescue operation.
”It would not be justified to put the responsibility on the fire department as we move only after receiving a complaint,” said Ehtishamuddin, the chief fire officer.
”As soon as we registered the complaint from the secretariat building, our fire tenders rushed to the spot, where we faced several hurdles while moving inside the affected area and did our best to control the fire in the mostly wooden structure.”
Eyewitnesses said though the firefighters prevented the fire from spreading to other parts and offices in the building, by the time they reached the spot the flames had already destroyed documents in 13 rooms on the first floor and four rooms on the ground floor of the Board of Revenue.
”But we still managed to save a few rooms on the ground floor despite the fact that the roof fell down on the ground floor’s offices of the building,” said the chief fire officer.
Some seven fire tenders backed by a snorkel helped more than 50 firefighters to complete the job but the damage assessment made by the officials concerned after the incident raised eyebrows from various quarters.
”As far as we have assessed, the records of a land survey, settlement and old records of acquisition and sales have been destroyed completely,” a senior official said after his initial findings and a visit to the site.
”I suspect a part of the land utilization department was also destroyed, but I can’t comment on it at this point of time as it’s too early to arrive at a conclusion.”
He agreed to the notion that transactions worth billions of rupees could be part of history without being put on record after the fire burnt all important files and documents. The official said the destroyed record included a major part of the Board of Revenue’s transactions made during the last five years of the recently dissolved government.
Another source said the land records destroyed on Thursday were broadly divided into two categories: government land and evacuee property. Under government land, records of acres of land allotted on the Super Highway, Thatta coastal belt wind-power project and Bundle Island were gutted.
‘A criminal act’
This assessment reinforced the suspicion about sabotage being behind the fire, which convinced the law enforcers to see it as a criminal act.
”We have set up a three-member committee headed by the DIG (investigations) to inquire into the matter and come up with a report within 15 days,” Sindh IG Azhar Ali Farooqui, who visited the site, told Dawn.
Answering a question, he said police usually remained aloof in recent fire incidents in the city, which apparently were results of human error and accidents, but the Board of Revenue’s fire was different from the others.
”It may be the result of arson and such suspicions prompt us to hold an inquiry looking at the incident as a criminal activity. But all these are suspicions and any such doubt would clear once our team comes up with the inquiry report,” added the IG.
As the inquiry team visited the site a few hours after the incident to gather facts, the fire on a holiday further strengthened the police authorities’ theory about the episode being act of crime.
”If you go though the recent history of fire incidents in the city, you would find that most fires erupted on Sundays in government buildings, which maintained a kind of records, documents or had value in terms of their structure and locations,” said another police official, who was part of the team that visited the fire site.
He said on weekends and holidays there were least movement of people in the government offices except security staff, who didn’t have access to each and every facility of the structure.
