Karachi airport manager, two others suspended

KARACHI: Nearly three weeks after the deadly attack on the Karachi airport, the airport manager and two fire officials were suspended on Friday on the basis of what the Civil Aviation Authority said the findings of an investigation into a fire incident that claimed eight lives. However, a three-page report of the inquiry committee, headed by Air Commodore Noor Elahi Bajwa and comprising Ahmed Chinoy and Bashir Jan Mohammad, released to the media does not put the blame on anybody. Eight workers of a cargo facility were found dead at the airport hours after the security administration had reportedly cleared the premises and the flights operation that remained suspended for one night following a deadly gun battle with militants resumed on June 9. The families of the eight people, who had been missing even after the resumption of the flights operation, raised hue and cry attracting the media attention. The families claimed that they received phone calls from them after the search was over. They said the workers were stranded in the cold storage facility and demanded that efforts be made to rescue them. Subsequently, the fire fighting and rescue operation were relaunched and many hours later the eight workers were found dead. The federal government then instituted an inquiry into the death of the workers. Responding to Dawn queries, CAA spokesperson Abid Kaimkhani said that three people have been suspended on the basis of the inquiry report. He confirmed that among those suspended was the Karachi Airport Manager Afsar Malik, while the two others belonged to the fire department, but he could not confirm the names of the suspended fire department officials. However, the three-page report of the inquiry committee does not put direct responsibility on anybody and stressed more than once that the bodies were not found in the cold storage. It says the bodies were found a little distance from the cold storage. While it praises those associated mostly with the security agencies, the report says that the fire fighters could not go earlier to rescue the workers as the area had not been cleared by the security agencies. The report says: “The committee concluded that no death occurred in the cold storage and in fact cold storage was far away from the actual place of casualties ..… The bodies were found from the office of Gerry’s Dnata cargo complex which is located 150 feet away from the cold storage….The committee asked the fire fighting agencies why they had not made attempts for many hours from 2235 hours to 0345 hours and the committee was told that “the area was not cleared by the security agencies and there was fear of firing and the terrorists could have thrown grenades resulting in more loss as fire fighters were not equipped or dressed with life saving uniforms nor any cover of security, but despite that they made attempts of fire fighting even under fire from the terrorists.” The committee highlighted in the report that efforts were made by Airport Security Force, fire fighters, CAA, but “they were not equipped to handle such sort of exceptional circumstances ….. though airport was already under threat the authorities and cargo handling agents were neither trained nor equipped to handle such emergencies.” The report says that committee also suggested to the government and the relevant authorities to take appropriate steps to avoid such incidents. However, detail of the measures are not included in the report that has been sent to the media for publication. Seven out of the eight workers found dead were identified as Farhan-ul-Haq, Fareed Khan, Sultan, Syed Saif-ur-Rehman, Nabeel Ahmed, Inayatullah Khan and Faizan Ahmed. Published in Dawn, June 28th , 2014