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| Vital record lost in Parliament House fire |
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Wednesday, June 27, 2007
By Israr Khan
ISLAMABAD: A huge fire erupted in the National Assembly on Tuesday night, reducing valuable record to ashes within no time including Public Accounts Committee reports and destroying other service accounts, eyewitnesses said.
The fire broke out at around 8.30 p.m. in the fourth floor of the National Assembly and engulfed the whole service branch that carried important records, including those of the Public Accounts Committee.
This is the second incident of its kind as earlier in 1995, fire broke out in the National Assembly building burning important records but its findings have not yet been made public.
Speaker National Assembly Chaudhry Amir Hussain, who was on his way from Sialkot to Islamabad, reached the spot after one hour of the incident and said that an enquiry would be conducted within a week to ascertain the cause of the fire.
"It took about 70 minutes to get control over the fire, as initially there were only two fire vehicles, which reached the site of incident 40 minutes late," said an eyewitness. Meanwhile, a firefighter Ashraff was slightly injured while putting off the blaze, which was virtually extinguished by 9:40 p.m.
"It was just an accident and the fire possibly broke out due to short circuit as nobody was present in the building, Deputy Speaker National Assembly Sardar Muhammad Raza told newsmen.
"I left the office at around 8.20 p.m. and when I reached the outer gate of the Assembly, I witnessed that fire has broken out in the fourth floor," he added. Talking to newsmen, he said the Service Branch of the National Assembly is situated at the fourth floor of the building that came under the sway of fire and having record of service accounts of five to 10 years. However, he was not quite sure whether the fire reached the room containing Public Accounts Committee record (PAC), situated at the other side of the building.
One of the rooms containing important records of the Interior Ministry official's including passports of members of the Parliament as well as records of the foreign tours and importantly the documents of bilateral agreements with other countries remained safe, said Deputy Secretary Administration National Assembly Shahid Hussain Jilani.
Leader of the opposition in the National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rehman soon after the incident reached the spot and said that if the incident happened due to negligence it was a big crime and should be investigated at the earliest so that facts could be unveiled to the public.
The National Assembly is a very sensitive place and it is for the second time that fire broke out in the building and the public at large has apprehensions as enquiry report of the first incident occurred in 1995 is still not made public, Fazl told newsmen.
He said that Parliament is the asset of the nation wherein public representatives use to sit and make legislation for the development of the country as well as for the welfare of the people. However, he said that they would raise the question on the floor of the house regarding repeated negligence in this regard.
To a question he said that the moment he came to know about the incident, most of the people who were sitting with him expressed the apprehensions that the incident was meant for destroying the important records, particularly Public Accounts Committees reports and other valuable documents.
Minister for Information Muhammad Ali Durrani, Minister of State for Interior Zafar Iqbal Warraich and Secretary Interior Syed Kamal Shah also reached the spot and termed the incident as great crime.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
