The relatives and sympathisers of October 8, 2005 earthquake victims on Saturday gathered at the site of Margalla Towers and paid homage to those who lost their lives and observed an one-minute silence and laid floral wreaths at the monument.
The officials of Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA), relatives and students gathered at the memorial, located near the site of Margalla Towers, and offered prayers for the deported souls of the earthquake victims besides observing an one-minute silence. They held a small ceremony to remember the victims and placed flowers at the venue while some carried placards with heart-wrenching messages and lighted candles in the memory of their loved ones.
People demanded the government to public the inquiry report of the Margalla Tower, conducted by Maj Gen Farooq Ahmed as chairman of the Prime Minister’s Inspection Commission.
On Saturday, October 8, 2005 two blocks of the Margalla Tower – a high-rise building of luxury apartments in Islamabad, collapsed after a 7.6 Richter scale earthquake struck at 8:53 am and lasted for approximately six minutes, resulting in 74 deaths.
The Margalla Towers was the only building in the city, which collapsed in the quake that flattened or damaged 600,000 houses and killed over 73,000 people in northern parts of Pakistan. The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has compensated the residents of ill-fated residential complex and paid Rs1.7 billion under the Supreme Court ruling.
A CDA official said the civic body would demolish the remaining building, adding that its plot should be auctioned because the cash-strapped authority had already paid Rs1.7 billion as compensation to the affected families.
He said some parties had contacted the CDA high-ups and expressed their readiness to pay up to Rs 100 million for the debris of the building but the bosses wanted to auction the land along with the damaged structure.
Chaudhry Iftikhar Ahmed, a spokesman of the Margalla Towers Residents Action Committee (MTRAC), urged the government make public the 1700-page inquiry report. “The authorities should public the report and give exemplary punishment to the responsible people as well as expose the element who forced the committee not to release the report,” he said.
He also appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take suo moto notice of the issue and asked the CDA to demolish the remaining building as it was turning into a breeding ground for criminal and immoral activities.
