LAHORE, May 10: Charred and beyond recognition bodies of 17 persons were recovered from the gutted LDA Plaza after the Rescue 1122 put out the fire on Friday.

The death toll in the LDA Plaza fire has reached 23, as 18 bodies were found on Friday and five on Thursday.

A body was retrieved from the 8th floor of the LDA headquarters and 16 bodies from the 9th floor. A body lying in one of the burnt portions of the plaza has yet to be retrieved. Among the dead was a woman.

Rescue 1122 Director General Dr Rizwan confirmed the death of Lahore Development Authority director general’s staff officer M Ejaz and said his body had yet to be retrieved. “It is still difficult to reach the corner where the body is lying,” he said at around 7pm.

Volunteers of the Filah-i-Insaniyat Foundation too helped the Rescue 1122 retrieve the bodies from upper portions of the plaza where temperature was intolerably high. Parts of the plaza were smoldering.

Rescue 1122 put out the fire early in the morning and the operation to retrieve the bodies was started afterwards.

All the bodies were packed in plastic bags and were sent to Mayo Hospital’s mortuary for autopsy.

Rescue 1122 officials said the bodies were visible. And the question about the presence of more bodies in the plaza could be answered after checking gutted portions, which had yet to be reached.

LDA Director General Dr Ejaz Munir said two of the dead were identified as LDA employee Abu Zar and retired deputy director Rashid from their clothes and identity cards. Rest of the bodies were beyond recognition.

However, a large number of LDA employees and families of some missing persons feared that these bodies could be of Irfan Ansari, Asad Shah, Qayyum, Sheikh Khalid, Amjad Ali, Akhtar Subhani, Ikram, Iqbal and Akram.

The Lahore Development Authority and the Rescue 1122 chiefs said that entire 5th, 7th, 8th and 9th floors had been gutted. They housed important record of the LDA.

Many LDA employees gathered on the spot feared a conspiracy behind the incident. LDA Employees Union General Secretary Muhammad Rashid Khan said the burnt main LDA offices at the 7th and 9th floor had 200 files of inquiries about illegal allotments in LDA colonies, record of illegal appointments and LDA’s entire accounts.

He said the National Accountability Bureau had sought the record three days ago.

Meanwhile, a committee formed by the chief minister to investigate the incident began recording statements of key officials.

The Lahore Development Authority director general parried questions seeking details of the record feared to have destroyed and the cause of the fire. He said the committee would bring everything on the record in its report.