KARACHI: A judicial commission, constituted to conduct a probe into the devastating Gul Plaza inferno, is set to start its proceedings from Wednesday (today) with a meeting with senior government officials.

The single-member commission headed by Justice Agha Faisal of the Sindh High Court will ascertain the causes as well as circumstances leading to the tragedy and to probe into building approvals, lease extension and construction violations as well as to assess prevention and firefighting arrangements at the ground-plus-three-storey building.

On Tuesday, the commission issued directives through the registrar office of the SHC to secretaries of home and law department and the city commissioner to attended the meeting.

The judicial commission will complete its inquiry within eight weeks and the Karachi commissioner office will provide secretariat support to it.

‘Gul Plaza fire audit was conducted in 2021’

The fire brigade department of the KMC in its comments filed before the SHC stated that a fire safety audit of Gul Plaza was conducted in 2021 and the deficiencies were communicated to the management of building with direction to rectify the same.

The chief fire officer also stated that firefighters had actively responded to the fire incident and one of them lost his life during the rescue operation.

It also maintained that committees had been constituted under assistant commissioners concerned with relevant department including fire brigade and the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation to conduct fire safety audit of all commercial buildings.

Two identical petitions had filed in the SHC after the tragic incident over alleged negligence on the part of the provincial government, the Sindh Building Control Aut­hority, KMC and others.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2026