LAHORE, May 9: The ravaging flames that engulfed the Lahore Development Authority plaza on Egerton Road on Thursday have left many questions unanswered.

Questions like what measures the officials had taken to protect the human resource, building and important documents are being asked.

An official said since the offices/directorates of Additional DG (HQ), Director (Law), Director (Monitoring and Inquiries) and Director (Admin) were established at the plaza’s seventh, eighth and ninth floors, important record, both computerised and soft copies, had been destroyed.

Sources told Dawn that the fire burnt important data and files related to various land-grab cases involving forgery in plot transfers in some residential and commercial areas of the LDA. Officials, especially of the directorate of land record and management, and some private land mafia might be able to prove themselves innocent now, they suspected.

“Besides land record, evidence of the recent recruitments made in back dates after imposition of ban on any sort of appointments by the election commission was also burnt. The additional DG (headquarters) and director (administration) and other senior officials were already being criticised for ‘protecting’ the officials facing land-grab inquiries.

DCO: The district coordination officer claimed that the entire record relating to construction of Metro Bus System and housing schemes was safe at the offices of the LDA.

“The MBS record is safe at the office of Tepa (Traffic Engineering and Transport Planning Agency) and housing schemes’ files/record etc., is also at the LDA’s office at Johar Town,” DCO Rizwan Mahboob, who also holds the LDA chairman slot, said in a statement.

He said an independent inquiry had been ordered. He said the fire erupted at the plaza’s seventh floor due to a short-circuit. He said the DG (rescue) and others also rushed to the spot soon after receiving information at 12 noon.

He said the deceased included three people who jumped from the building in a bid to save them.