Gul Plaza fire: Police surgeon submits reply to judicial probe

KARACHI: Police Surgeon Dr. Summaiya Syed submitted her written reply of a questionnaire to the judicial commission inquiring into the Gul Plaza shopping mall fire tragedy in January that claimed several lives.

Dr Summaiya Syed said that the fire and suffocation by the smoke was the cause of deaths in the incident. “After the incident eight injured were brought for medical attendance,” police surgeon replied.

“Total 73 dead bodies and human remains brought to hospital,” Dr Summaiya said. “There were seven complete bodies and remains of 66 burnt bodies.”

“The remains were intensely burnt so their complete postmortem could not be conducted,” police doctor said.

“According to the available evidence the affected persons were most likely live at the time of the fire,” doctor said.

“There were marks of minor injuries over the complete dead bodies, the marks of injuries were not matching with a stampede or building collapse,” Dr. Sumaiyya Syed said.

She said finding the bodies in different phases shows that the victims were stranded for long time.

Police Surgeon said that the samples have been collected to examine presence of toxic gas or chemicals. “The toxicology reports have not been received so far,” she said.

She said that the medico-legal reports of all dead bodies have been provided to the concerned authorities.

On January 17 night, a massive fire broke out at Gul Plaza shopping mall on M.A. Jinnah Road, engulfing the building and trapping dozens inside it. The blaze raged for over 32 hours before being brought under control, exposing weaknesses of the Karachi’s emergency response system.