A brokerage house situated on 5th floor of the Lahore Stock Exchange (LSE) building was gutted, after a fire broke out, causing millions of rupees' loss to the owner of house. However, there was no interruption to LSE trading.
Fire broke out at about 8:00 am and computers, share certificates and other articles in the house valuing millions of rupees burnt into ashes. However, fire fighters reached the spot and controlled the blaze after two hours' hectic efforts. No loss of life was reported.
LSE Managing Director was informed on telephone about the incident but he could not reach before 10:00 am a scuffle between security guards and journalists also took place when the security officials stopped them to go inside. Security personnel, guarding the LSE premises, maltreated a cameraman of a private TV channel. Moreover, the security personnel also stopped members / brokers and investors to enter into the premises. There were also reports of exchange of hot words between the two sides.
Owner of the house Mian Nusratuddin held one of his old employees Shahid Ali Haider responsible for the incident. He told Business Recorder that a few days back his accountant had detected malpractice of Haider, who was a trader in his house, and also brought the matter into his notice. "I asked him to clear his accounts." Today, an inquiry was also scheduled against him in the house. "He is my culprit and to hide his crime he set the house on blaze to destroy the whole record," he claimed.
It was learnt Shahid Ali Haider, who was manager in the house and had been associated with the house for last 15 years, came early in the morning in the stock exchange. Being an old employee of the house, the security guards, after some hesitation, allowed him to enter into the premises. After a few minutes of his entry into the house he cried out, 'fire, fire'.
According to an official of the LSE, Haider had reached there at 7:30 am, thus the security guards hesitated to allow him entry into the exchange so early, but upon his showing keys of the house, they let him go inside.
"Before the fire fighters reached the spot, we used our in-house fire system to stop the fire stretching to the adjoining houses," Azmat Ali Butt, Manager (Admn) of LSE said adding, "because of our efforts we saved the other houses."
Meanwhile, the security guards detained Haider and then locked him into a room. He was later handed over to Civil Lines police, Butt said.
Some of the journalists, who were disallowed entry into the LSE building from covering the incident, took the matter of malpractice by security guards with the Security In-charge Colonel Rashid Mehmood (Retd), he showed his ignorance about the incident but gave an assurance that he would make sure such incident did not happen again. He also assured them to exempt journalists from physical search while entering the LSE premises.
LSE Chairman Syed Asim Zafar said the exchange would not hold any separate inquiry into the fire incident adding, "the owner of the house has nominated the suspected employee in the FIR, therefore, we will rely on the police investigations."
Meanwhile, a press release issued by the LSE management said at 8:15 in the morning, a fire broke out in room No 509 of the LSE building, the brokerage house of Mian Nusratuddin, member of LSE. The fire brigade staff arrived promptly at the scene and with the help of LSE administration was able to timely extinguish fire before it could spread to other parts of the building. The chairman, the managing director and other high ups of the exchange immediately reached the spot and took charge of the situation to make sure that LSE stayed open for trading. The cause of the fire has not been determined yet, the release concluded.
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