Model town courts fire: 1,000 police, judicial files burned

LAHORE: More than 1,000 police and judicial files burned on Sunday when some cupboards near a judicial magistrate’s courtroom at the Model Town Courts caught fire. Rescue 1122 fire fighters were called and the fire was put out in a few hours. Some court staffers speculated that the fire was caused deliberately. Witnesses said that the fire in a wooden cupboard placed outside Shaukat Javed Khan’s courtroom started at around 12:30pm. It soon spread to the adjoining cupboards, reducing more than 1,000 files to ashes. Some judicial record lying in shelves at ventilator level was also burned; hundreds of files were damaged by water used to put out the fire. The fire was first noticed by duty magistrate Syed Arsalan who alerted the magistrate’s staff. Advocate Farzand Ali Mashhadi later said that another fire at the court a week ago was put out before it caused any significant damage. He said electricity supply had been suspended for that day.  He regretted that more than 5,000 files were lying in the stairs of the court complex.  A court staffer told The Express Tribune that more cupboards were needed for proper storage of the record.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2012.