Srinagar, Mar 5: Goods worth millions of rupees were damaged when over two dozen shops were gutted to cinder last light at the historic Maharaj Gunj market in Shahr-e-Khaas, police and reports Friday said.
 The Beopar Mandal there alleged that much could have been saved had the additional contingency of firefighters reached the spot in time adding that the delay was caused due to bottlenecks en route the market in congested old City area.
 The traders said the fire broke out at around 1 AM from one of the shops and within minutes spread to other shops and godowns in the vicinity.
 The police in a handout said: “During the intervening night of 04/05.03.2010, fire broke out at Beopar Mandal Srinagar falling under the jurisdiction of police station MR Gunj in which three storied building, housing 24 shops and 24 godowns got completely damaged.”
 The police said the cause of fire is being ascertained.
 Haji Muhammad Yasin,  General Secretary Beopar Mabdal MR Gunj whose shop Ms Shujaat textiles was also gutted, said for the first one hour only the fire tenders available locally in old City were operational while the additional contingency couldn’t reach in time.
 “The firefighters could have come via the Budshah Tomb side, but couldn’t due to a bottleneck and ultimately they had to take a long route via Aali Kadal which led to delay,” the Beopar Mandal, General Secretary said.
 Yasin said for the past many decades the Beopar Mandal has been appealing before successive regimes that the bottleneck near the Budshah Tomb be removed.
 “The matter is pending before the government for the past over three decades but till now noting has been done,” Yasin said while putting the losses to the traders community at around Rs 25 crore.
 “We have never sought any undue financial assistance from the government but have only been pleading the bottleneck be removed because otherwise we everyday face inconvenience in transportation of goods to the marketplace,” Yasin added.
 Gurpreet Singh Anand of MG Traders said his tea wholesale shop was completely destroyed adding his suffered losses of around Rs 60 lakhs.
 The Beopar Mandal identified some of the affected traders as Lal Terath Ram, Haji Muhammad Yasin and Co Cloth Merchant, Shuja Textiles, Dola Singh, Bhupinder Singh, JK Sales Corporation, Habib Ullah Shangloo Cloth Merchants.
 Meanwhile, the MoS Housing and Urban Development Department, Nasir Sogami visited the spot and interacted with the traders assuring them of relief.
 The Shehar-e-Khaas welfare and Development Co-Ordination Committee has expressed sympathies with the affected traders.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 5 Mar 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 5 Mar 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 6 Mar 2010 00:00:00 IST