District courts: Ammunition, drugs burn in Mal Khana fire

Fire broke out at around 1pm, was put out by 5pm.

LAHORE:

More than 2,000 kg hashish, around 400 bottles of liquor, over 400 bullets and other prosecution evidence were burned in a fire at the mal khana (judicial warehouse) of district courts on Monday.

Two fire fighters, Haroon of Civil Defence Department and Ramazan of Rescue 1122, and the in charge of warehouse, Feroz Niazi, fainted during the fire fighting operation.

Rescue 1122 Emergency Officer Shahid Waheed told The Express Tribune that they were informed about the fire at 1:17pm. He said the fire fighting operation started within six minutes and fire was put out by 5pm.

Policemen deployed at the warehouse told The Tribune that fire had started near a canteen on the premises. They suspected that the waste dumped by canteen workers had caught fire which later spread to the warehouse.

A court official who was on duty at the warehouse said he saw smoke rising from inside a room but initially ignored it. He said he and other officials were alarmed and rushed out for help when the smoke became dense and spread to the room where they were sitting.

He said fire fighting was delayed for about 10 minutes as the bullets kept in the warehouse started exploding from the heat.

The official said the prisoners at the judicial lockup at the time were shifted to the relevant jail vans.

Tariq Zaman, personal staff officer to the district coordination officer, said a judicial inquiry will be conducted into the incident to determine the cause of the fire.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2012.