KARACHI, March 16: A 46-year-old man was killed and another injured on Sunday when a fire broke out in a plastic warehouse in Ittehad Town, Baldia, rescue workers and witnesses said.

Fire-brigade officials said the fire, which erupted at the warehouse at around 6.30am, was triggered by an electric short circuit. It reduced the goods there to ashes before the fire engines reached the spot.

Moach Koh police said the victim, Riaz Ahmed, was the owner of the warehouse, built on a residential plot near the last stop of X-10 minibuses.

The victim, hailing from Mardan, NWFP, sustained fatal burns. He was rushed to the hospital, where he died soon after arrival.

In another blaze, a refrigerators manufacturing unit was destroyed in Landhi. Chief fireman, Mohammed Ehtesham Uddin, told Dawn that the fire broke out at the factory around midnight and a portion of the five-storey building had collapsed before the fire trucks reached there at around 1pm.

He said the entire building and goods present in it were destroyed.

The chief fire officer said that about 12 firemen were also slightly injured by falling pieces of the concrete and other material.

He said the fire was contained after a five-hour operation in which at least 22 fire engines took part.

Gang busted

The Quaidabad investigation police on Sunday arrested a suspected five-member inter-provincial gang of dacoits in a raid conducted near the Gul Ahmed Textile Mills, adds APP.

A police team arrested suspected dacoit Faisal Rind, the gang leader, and his four accomplices identified as Javed Ahmed Solangi, Hanif Punjabi, Bismillah Jan Pathan and Mohammad Akram alias Babar.