Owais Baig went to the State Life Building on Abdullah Haroon Road for a job. It was an ordinary day and he was an ordinary man. He was dressed neatly in a crisp shirt and ironed pants as so much of the randomly selected world on one of Karachi’s streets would discover just over an hour later. One and a half hour later, the senseless meeting of two wronged wires would start a fire. The smoke from the fire would start filling up the hope and trepidation filled room where Owais Baig waited for his turn at impressing someone enough to be rewarded with a job.
One hour later the unthinkable would happen and of the 800 or so people in the building, one man, Owais Baig would know the least about how to leave. In the panic of entrapment, only he would try the fire escape instead of the stairs. Only one man, Owais Baig of Gulistan-e-Jauhar, would hang for over 20 minutes from the ledge on the State Life Building, waiting for one of the three snorkels in a city of 18 million. Only one man’s 10 fingers would give out as he clasped its edge. And only one man would fall to his death on the hard, unforgiving streets below, his bones crumbling against the asphalt, his blood spattering on the sidewalks worn by the steps of so many souls.
State Life will pay one million rupees to fire victim family.
State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan, on the directives of the federal commerce minister, will provide financial assistance of one million rupees to the victim family
Video Link (Dunya News)
http://dunyanews.tv/...le-fleeing-fire