Daily Times

LAHORE: Two consecutive blasts, owing to outdated water geysers, occurred at the National College of Arts (NCA) Girl’s Hostel, leaving three students injured on early Saturday morning. The blasts created panic and fear among the students who spent their morning outside the hostels, while no NCA official visited the place until morning.

According to sources at NCA, two consecutive blasts were heard at around 4am in the building of NCA Girl’s Hostel, containing 50 rooms. The blasts occurred when two outdated water geysers blew up, resulting in breaking the hostel walls and shattering the hostel windows.

Around 100 students were residing in the building at that time. The injured students were rushed to a nearby hospital for first aid.

“I was sleeping when I heard a blast, woke up to inquire the matter when another geyser exploded,” a resident of the locality told Daily Times. He further said that all the people came out of their houses and saw that the walls of NCA Girl’s Hostel were broken and pieces of water geysers were scattered across the floor.

“The students started screaming when people found the injured student whose rooms were near the geysers,” he added.

Sources said that the building was constructed more than 20 years ago and the geysers were also installed at that time. They added that no check and balance or inspection was done since the installation of these geysers. However, the management repaired some of them whenever students complained about non-availability of hot water.

None of the officials of NCA visited the place. Even the head of NCA Hostel Affairs Committee refrained from visiting the spot or inquiring the matter. The NCA Hostel Affairs Committee consisted Prof Fakharullah Tahir, Prof Nahid Fakhar, Prof Shahnaz Malhi and others.

Talking to Daily Times, a student seeking anonymity blamed the NCA administration for the incident, saying that the blasts occurred due to negligence of the management that never took interest in issues pertaining to lives of students. She added, “It seems that lives of students don’t matter to the administration, as students for them are only a way to earn money.”

Another student observed that the NCA principal along with the management was responsible for the incident and injuries of students.