ISLAMABAD: Deputy Commissioner (DC) Irfan Nawaz Memon expects the inquiry report into Wednesday’s fire at the H-9 weekly bazaar to be completed in the next few days.

Speaking to Dawn on Sunday, the deputy commissioner, who is also the administrator of the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) which handles the weekly bazaars, said the report would be completed in the next few days, and in its light and recommendations, the MCI would take steps to minimise chances of fire in the weekly bazaars in future. “At this stage I can’t say anything more,” he added.

The MCI officials said apparently fire broke out as a result of the welding work being carried out by stallholders to install shutter gates.

Sources said as per the standard operating procedure (SOP) issued by the CDA years ago, all weekly bazaars were temporary and there was no concept of permanent shops. However, now the stallholders are installing gates as well.

The officials said due to their temporary status, the CDA and MCI never provided them electricity connections till last year when some stallholders got the connections.

When contacted, Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA) Director Shakeel Arshad said the directorate would implement the recommendations finalised by the inquiry committee.

He said whatever the reasons and issues such as installation of Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS), power batteries and backup generators were concerned, the DMA would sort them out.

“We don’t want to take any abrupt action to disturb stallholders; we will take some actions to avoid fire incidents in future,” he said, adding that within one week, the fire station in H-9 Sunday Bazaar would be made functional on the instruction of the deputy commissioner.

Asked why permission was given for welding work in the bazaar, he said the shopkeepers had been asked to take precautionary measures before the work commenced.

“The cause of fire is yet to be determined,” he added.

The sprawling market saw a number of fire incidents during the last few years.As many as 133 stalls out of 2,800 were destroyed in Wednesday’s fire.

The weekly bazaars in H-9, G-10, I-9 and G-6 had been built by the CDA and stalls allotted by its directorate (DMA). Later, after the MCI was set up in 2016, the DMA was devolved to the corporation and since then the bazaars have been looked after by the corporation.

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2022