Gul Plaza fire commission blames systemic failure, not a single person or institution

The Gul Plaza judicial commission did not identify one person or institution as solely responsible for the fire that killed more than 70 people in Karachi. Instead, it described the disaster as the result of sustained failure across public systems.

Justice Agha Faisal of the Sindh High Court said legal and administrative mechanisms for urban safety existed but had not been implemented effectively. The report said people died not only from the flames, but also because of delays, darkness, locked exits and windows, missing fire-safety systems, incomplete audits and inspections, and fragmented authority.

The commission assigned institutional responsibilities to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, including its fire brigade, the Sindh Building Control Authority, Rescue 1122, the civil defence department and the district administration. It also said material responsibility rested with those acting as the building’s de facto management, as well as its owners, occupants and commercial operators.

The 78-page report said the emergency-response system did not appear sufficiently trained, coordinated or equipped to handle an incident of that scale. It described the tragedy as a grave indictment of municipal and provincial systems and said the findings did not exonerate the institutions involved or single out only the current administration.

The fire began on the night of Jan. 17 and took almost two days to extinguish, leaving the ground-plus-three-storey building in ruins, with parts of it collapsed. The Sindh government formed the commission in February. Justice Faisal handed the sealed report and the full record to the law department secretary in April, but officials did not publicly release it for months. The unsigned report was later released quietly by the home department.

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Sustained underperformance by public systems caused the tragedy.