Exhumation of Subra City fire victims sought

Applicant claims the tragedy was not accidental

HARIPUR:

Claiming that they had been murdered, a man has filed an application seeking the exhumation and re-autopsy of a woman and three children who had been killed in a fire in the Subra Colony of Haripur last month.

In an application filed through Shahid Jamil, Ilyas contended that his wife and three children had perished in a fire at his home in the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) Colony on August 28. However, he argued that the fire was not an accident and that they had been murdered and the fire was used to cover up the crime.

Speaking to the media on Monday, Ilyas said that due to the alleged negligence and carelessness of the police and the doctors, a proper post-mortem of the victims was not carried out nor were investigations made in the right direction.

The conditions and situation on site indicated that this was no accident, Ilyas said.

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He added that they have applied the exhumation of bodies and their re-examination through a medical board so that they can determine what really happened.

Meanwhile, Wapda in its investigations has ruled out the possibility of a fire starting as a result of a short circuit, as was originally believed.

Initial reports had suggested that a fire had erupted after a short circuit in a window air conditioner installed in the house owned by Tarbela Dam Fifth Expansion Project employee Sardar Shahzad. Owing to the fire and the smoke created, five-year-old Hamdan, three-year-old Umar and their mother Nagina Bibi along with her niece, 14-year-old Hooriya perished.

Rescue workers initially took the bodies to the Wapda Hospital in Tarbela before taking them to the Ghazi Tehsil Headquarters Hospital for a post-mortem. Later, they were buried in their ancestral graveyard in Nimli Mera, Abbottabad.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 8^th, 2020.