Three Shops, Two Timings, One Meter

FACTS

1. On 14 March at 02:10 hours, this post received a relay from the control room of a call reporting smoke from the Saddar furniture market. The duty officer attended with two constables; the rescue service reached the site at approximately 02:25.
2. On arrival, three adjoining shops (numbered 2, 3 and 4) were found burning. The fire was brought under control at 04:05 hours. No death was reported. One firefighter, name not yet obtained, was treated at the site for a burn to the right hand.
3. The watchman of the market, Gul Rahman s/o not recorded, states that he observed sparks at the electric meter of shop 2 at about 01:50 and informed the fire brigade at 02:00. His statement has been recorded and signed.
4. Nasreen Bibi, resident of the flats to the rear, states that the fire began at about 02:30 and that a stove had been lit in the rear room of shop 3.
5. Haji Aziz, owner of shop 2, claims stock loss of 9 million rupees. No records were produced. The rescue officer's preliminary estimate is 2.5 to 3.5 million rupees, subject to assessment.
6. The electricity department states in writing that supply to the market was disconnected on 9 March.
7. Investigation is continuing.

Origin time - record, do not reconcile. Both statements go in, attributed and with times. The decisive anchor is not either witness but the control-room log: the first call was logged at 02:10, which makes Nasreen Bibi's 02:30 impossible as the origin - a fire cannot be reported twenty minutes before it starts. Her time is probably when she woke or when she looked out. Gul Rahman's 01:50 is consistent with the log and comes from a person on the premises, but consistency is not proof; he may be reconstructing. The report should therefore say the earliest reported observation is 01:50, the call was logged at 02:10, and one witness gives 02:30, which is inconsistent with the log.

Loss - record as claim and as estimate, separately. Nine million is the owner's claim; state it as a claim and state expressly that no records were produced. The rescue officer's range is an estimate; give the range, not a midpoint, and do not average it with the claim or adopt either figure as the loss. Recommend assessment by the revenue authorities or an insurance assessor, and say so in the report. A single number with no provenance is the fastest way to lose the case in court.

The disconnection on 9 March.

If the market's supply was cut five days before the fire, the meter of shop 2 could not have been throwing sparks on 14 March in the ordinary course. That single fact does three things: it demotes the watchman's account from probable cause to a proposition to be tested; it opens three alternative lines - an illegal reconnection, a generator or stored fuel in one of the shops, or a fire that was set; and it means the fire officer should be asked specifically about the electrical distribution board rather than about a meter.

Before 08:00:

1. Obtain the disconnection in writing from the electricity department, with date, meter number and the name of the official - a telephone confirmation is not enough and will not survive the first hearing.
2. Ask the subdivision officer whether any reconnection, legal or illegal, was recorded for that meter or the market's shared connection.
3. Note in the report that no generator or fuel container was seen, or record exactly what was seen - an absence noted at the time is evidence; an absence remembered later is not.
4. Put the three lines to the investigating officer on handover, in writing, not verbally at the shift change.