LAHORE: The Pakistan Tehreelei-Insaf on Tuesday demanded a formal inquiry by the chief justice of Pakistan and the Lahore high court chief justice into the 2013 fire at the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) headquarters, which claimed 25 lives and lef t many injured.

The latest prompter to reiterate the demand came from the contractor, Sajjad Warraich the CEO of the company, which was given contract to raise three top storeys that were damaged in the fire who claimed that the LDA staff itself put some files on fire in the second incident.

Flanked by the contractor, Shafgat Mahmood, chairman Anti-Corruption Committee of PTI, said there were two incidents of fire at the plaza; first on May 9, 2013 and then on June 29, 2013. The Punjab Forensic Science Agency, which investigated the second episode on the instructions of [then] district coordination officer Nasim Sadiq concluded thatthe second incident was deliberate. From this conclusion, the PTI has drawn the inference that the nrst one also could have been a deliberate act on the part of the LDA, where important record of the authority was lost.

`Since our company had taken over the premises after the first fire incident, our employees are eyewitness to the fact that some LDA employees came to the seventh floor, retrieved files (reportedly of allotments of plots reserved for widows in Johar Town scheme) from stacks of files that were not burnt in the first stance and set them on fire,` explained Sajjad Warraich.

`The LDA, led by former director general Ahad Cheema, who is already in the NAB custody, itself can be blamed for both incidents and now we are ready to go to any court and stand witness to the fact, which we are claiming. After all, it was matter of 25 innocent lives,` said Sajjad.

When asked if he was only concernedwith human lives, why he has chosen a political platform (of PTI) and that too after a hiatus of five years when elections are so close, he said he had to adopt the PTI platform because otherwise no one could have taken him seriously.

About timing of the revelation, he defended saying that since LDA was earlier ruled by a mafia, he chose to stay quiet.

Now, there have been some changes in the authority and good people have moved in, `I have decided to go public.

But Sajjad refused to reveal names of those LDA officials, who, according to him, ignited the second fire and burnt the leftover record.

When asl(ed why the PTI has so far failed to effect any desertions from Lahore, Shafgat claimed that many things happen when elections get closer. `Let`s wait for a few more days before claiming PTI failure to attract people from Lahore,` he said.

-Staff Reporter