Five siblings perish in Gulshan shanty fire

Tragedy struck a poor family in Gulshan-e-Iqbal’s Shanti Nagar area, where five siblings burnt alive in a fire, which devoured several huts in the wee hours of Friday.

Station House Officer (SHO) Adeel Afzal of the Aziz Bhatti police station said that after receiving calls at around 2am about a fire in Tayyab Goth shanties near Aziz Bhatti Park, he called rescue teams and the fire station asked them to immediately reach the scene.

After arriving at the scene, cops with the help of rescuers and firefighters started evacuating the shanty dwellers to safety. The police officer said they witnessed some Kunda connections and had the electricity suspended to the area.

Rescuers and firefighters brought out five seriously injured siblings and a woman and took them to the Civil Hospital Karachi, where four of the siblings were pronounced dead on arrival. The deceased children were identified as 12-year-old Saima, daughter of Haq Nawaz, her brothers Farhan, 11, and Kamran, 9, and eight-year-old sister Tayyaba. By Friday evening, the fifth sibling, four-year-old Zaiba, also expired. The SHO said initial findings suggested that the fire started after a live Kunda wire fell onto the hut of Haq Nawaz, a labourer.

The Central Fire Office said two fire tenders managed to extinguish the fire after two hours of hectic efforts. It said five shanties were reduced to ashes; however, 15 others were saved.

KE saddened by deaths

The K-Electric said in a statement that in an unfortunate turn of events, a fire incident occurred near Shanti Nagar in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, which claimed five lives early on Friday morning.

As per initial media reports, it said, the fire erupted in one of the nomad huts apparently because of a short circuit inside premises. However, the exact reason is yet to be verified while investigations are ongoing.

The KE spokesperson, while expressing deep sorrow over the incident, said, "At K-Electric, our heart goes out to the victims of this tragic incident and their families. As soon as we received the information about the fire interruption, we immediately suspended power supply to the area as a precautionary measure, which was later restored after receiving safety clearance from KE teams who were on ground to extend support.”

He further stated, "Media reports suggested that these nomad huts were obtaining electricity thorough illegal kunda connections as there is no KE infrastructure in the area where these makeshifts nomad huts were present. Moreover, KE has led various kunda removal drives in that specific area, including one that occurred just a few days back. However, these illegal connections are reinstated which create safety hazards for the masses. KE is not only taking action against such illegal hook connections around the city but also continues to raise awareness about the risk they pose to the lives of the masses and public property.”