LAHORE: Shahzad, who fell from the fourth floor of the Goldmine plaza in Ichchra and died of multiple injuries, kept crying for several minutes for help from a window when the building caught fire on Tuesday morning.
Bakhtawar Khan, a parking worker at the plaza, witnessed the scene.
He says rescue workers had not arrived at the scene when Shahzad appeared on the window, and screamed “help, help”.
He said though a sizable crowd was present on the ground, the cries of Shahzad did not move anyone and most of the people started capturing the helplessness of youth on cell phones.
Talking to Dawn, an official of the Ichra police station (adjacent to the plaza) said he with some other police officials helped some trapped people come out of the building through ladders.
“We were on the front elevation side of the plaza. As soon as we heard the noise, we arranged ladders, went to the affected floors and brought down some trapped people,” he added. He said Shahzad had fallen before they reached there.
District Coordination Officer retired Captain Muhammad Usman said he had constituted a two-member team - consisting of the Model Town assistant commissioner and the district officer (Civil Defence) - to probe into the fire incident and the reported late arrival of rescue teams.
“According to my information, rescue teams were at the scene in five minutes after they were alerted,” he said.
“They started operation from the front side of the plaza, no one told them that someone was clinging to a window grill in the back of the plaza. Had they been alerted about Shahzad, rescuers would have brought him down,” he said.
He said the room where from Shahzad fell had not caught fire. “I think Shahzad was trying to get down through window grills,” he said.