Asif Iqbal Naik
KISHTWAR
In a late Monday night tragic fire incident at village Manzgham Qadrina in remote Marwah sub-Division of Kishtwar district, at least seven shops were completely gutted causing huge losses to the owners.
While talking to Kashmir Life, a local inhabitant from Qadrina Ghulam Nabi Inqalabi informed that the villagers noticed the smoke coming out of the shops at around 10 PM and raised the alarm as a result of which large number of villagers immediately rushed to the spot and started rescue and relief operation and managed to douse the flames and prevented it from further spreading.
“But till then seven shops along with goods and other items reduced to rubble causing losses to the tune of more than Rs 24 lakhs to the owners,” he said.
He identified the owners of the shops and the property as Ghulam Hassan Sheikh, Ghulam Rasool Malik and Faiz Ahmed Malik.
He said that the village lacks the electricity and road as result of which the area depends on the local help to deal with such eventuality.
He added that no senior revenue officials are present at Tehsil or sub-divisional headquarter for preparing the relief cases and only cops from Police Station Marwah reached the spot.
Due to non-availability of electricity, the people in this area having population of about 40000 souls remain mostly dependent on fire wood which perhaps might be the cause of the incident.
Police have registered the case and has started its investigation.
When contacted, Deputy Commissioner Kishtwar, Ghulam Nabi Balwan while confirming the fire incident said that necessary directions have been issued to revenue officials concerned for preparing the losses as well as the relief cases in favour of the victims.
Meanwhile, a team of Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) from Jammu on Tuesday collected samples from the debris of the burnt building of Block Development Officer Kishtwar that caught fire on Sunday evening.
As per the details available with Kashmir Life, a team of FSL from Jammu was called by the J&K police stationed in Kishtwar to ascertain the exact cause of the fire that damaged huge portion of the building including some precious records of MGNREGA.
The sources said that the FSL and investigating team looked into all aspects that could cause the fire incident.
Even after collecting the FSL samples, the police are yet to handover the building complex to Rural Development Department for ascertaining the loss to the record and damages to the building complex.
The police have registered an FIR U/S 436 RPC and are likely to hold a joint sitting with the officials of the department for making a detailed inventory of the record damaged as well as the record saved.
Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner Kishtwar has hinted for formation of a high level committee to inquire about the circumstances that lead to this fire incident so that the responsibility could be fixed for dereliction of duties.
