Caretaker Sindh Chief Minister Justice (retd) Maqbool Baqar has taken notice of the absence of safety and security arrangements at commercial and government offices.

In a statement, the interim CM said that the fire eruption incidents in commercial and government offices were claiming valuable lives, thereby destroying families and causing huge losses to the concerned private and public properties.

The decision comes after 11 people died and 22 got injured when a massive fire broke out at a shopping centre on Karachi’s Rashid Minhas Road. Several shops were gutted before firefighters extinguished the flames and began the cooling process.

According to Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab, the fire had been extinguished and the cooling process was going on.

The CM said that such incidents were taking place because the government had “abandoned” the inspection system. “I have developed an inspection regime under which inspection of all the installations, offices, commercial buildings and public spots would be carried out in a scientific and systematic way,” the CM said.

He directed the SBCA, PDMA, Civil Defence, and deputy commissioner/assistant commissioner concerned to carry out safety audits of all public and commercial buildings, educational institutions, and government offices and submit their report along with recommendations.

Baqar said that most of the commercial buildings and even government offices had stopped installing fire extinguishers at the establishments. “As a result, when fire erupts, there is no system or mechanism to extinguish,” he said.

The CM also directed the Karachi commissioner to inquire into the incident of fire eruption in a shopping mall, near Dalmia. “This is a grave incident which has claimed valuable lives,” he said and directed the commissioner to fix the responsibility so that necessary action could be taken.