The judicial commission, constituted to probe the Gul Plaza fire tragedy, has asked citizens having any knowledge of facts and circumstances with regard to the fire to provide such information in writing to the commission secretariat set up at the Sindh High Court before February 20.
A single-member commission of inquiry headed by Justice Agha Faisal initiated proceedings after setting up the inquiry commission’s secretariat at the SHC. The commission has advised citizens to also submit their ID card, email address and mobile phone number alongwith the statement.
The commission was gazetted by the home department on February 10 to probe the incident, which left 79 people dead last month. Under the terms of reference, the inquiry commission shall examine if the building approvals and lease extensions by the Sindh Building Control Authority, its predecessor organisations and Karachi Metropolitan Corporation were in accordance with applicable laws, rules and regulations. It will assess if the construction of Gul Plaza was in violation of the approved building plan leading to difficulty in evacuation of people.
The commission will also assess arrangements in place at the Gul Plaza building for fire prevention, detection and firefighting by the building management as required under applicable laws and safety regulations. It will assess if the building management or any government department/agency had carried out fire safety audits and whether the recommendations were implemented by the building management.
It will also ascertain the causes and circumstances leading to the fire incident. The inquiry commission will examine and evaluate rescue operations for adequacy and swiftness and fix responsibility for any acts of commission or omission committed prior to and subsequent to the incident. The commission will complete the inquiry within eight weeks.
At least 79 people lost their lives while 1,100 shops were gutted in the fire. Opposition parties, including the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and the Jamaat-e-Islam, had rejected the initial findings of the fire cause and demanded a judicial inquiry by a judge of the high court.
