KARACHI: Two key witnesses, who had managed to escape from the deadly Gul Plaza inferno informed a judicial commission on Thursday that the authorities concerned and management of the ill-fated building had not come to the rescue of the people trapped inside the plaza when the blaze erupted.
They also testified that no announcement was made about the fire to alert the people present in the shopping centre as the fire engulfed it. One of the survivors also pointed out that apart from one or two gates, the rest of the exit points of the building were closed.
The single-member commission headed by Justice Agha Faisal of the Sindh High Court was tasked with probing the devastating blaze and fixing responsibility for any acts of commission or omission committed prior to and subsequent to the tragic incident.
Ali Haider turned up and deposed that he was working as a salesman at a luggage shop on the ground floor of Gul Plaza, and his workplace was located near a gate opening towards the M.A. Jinnah Road.
Wonder why no fire alarm sounded, most exit points were found closed
He stated that he was about to close the shop on Jan 17 at around 10:15pm and suddenly noticed smoke on the floor and thus, he left the shop and saw a fire erupting on the mezzanine floor.
The witness also said that he came back to his shop at around 10:30pm to check if things were normal there, as thick smoke was rapidly spreading across the floor. His shop also caught fire in the next 10 minutes, since the luggage / items in it were flammable.
Therefore, he further testified, he fell unconscious after two fibre luggage pieces burst close to him, and upon regaining consciousness, he found himself in a hospital.
Mr Haider, in his statement, maintained that apart from one or two gates, the rest of the exits were closed, and he had not noticed any fire tenders or rescue agencies on the site before falling unconscious.
“It is further added that until the time of my falling conscious, there was no announcement of the fire made, nor did any person come to rescue the trapped people inside the building, either from the management side or from any government agency,” his testimony concluded.
Mohammad Junaid deposed that he had been working at a crockery shop on the mezzanine floor of the plaza for the last four years, and they were moving out after closing the shop at 10:15pm.
However, the owner of the shop suddenly realised that he had forgotten his cellphone inside the shop, and at the same time they noticed thick smoke spreading in the building and thereafter they realised severity of the smoke and fire, he added.
The witness also testified that he, along with two other persons who had worked in the same market / floor, attempted to escape at around 11:15pm and somehow managed to come out of the burning building through a bathroom’s side exit at around 11:30pm as there were no passages visible due to thick smoke.
Therefore, he further said, an Edhi ambulance had shifted him to a hospital due to chest congestion and suffocation caused by the smoke.
Mr Junaid deposed that no announcement was made about the fire until their evacuation, and nobody came to rescue the stranded people inside the building, either from the building’s management side or any government agency.
Around 80 people had lost their lives in the deadly inferno which erupted on the night of Jan 17 and took nearly two days to be fully extinguished. The fire left the ground-plus-three-storey building in ruins, with some of its sections collapsed.
Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2026
