DUSHANBE, September 21, 2012, Asia-Plus — A meeting of a special commission to reveal the cause of a fire at Dushanbe’s Korvon marketplace, presided over by Mayor Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloyev, took place on September 20.
Speaking at the meeting, the mayor drew attention of those present to the necessity of protecting rights of vendors who lost their goods in the fire and coordinating work of relevant agencies involved in the investigation, Shavkat Saidov, a spokesman for the Dushanbe mayor’s office said.
Deputy Prosecutor-General, Habibullo Vohidov, heads the commission set up to reveal the cause of the fire and assess actual damage caused by the fire. The commission members include representatives from the State Committee for National Security (SCNS), the Ministry of Interior (MoI), the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT), as well as representatives of the vendors who lost their goods in the fire.
We will recall that the fire that broke out at the Korvon marketplace on the Dushanbe outskirts late on September 5 destroyed one of the market”s major buildings and numerous trade stands where goods were stored.
Officials said one person was killed in the fire and four others were hospitalized with burns.
On September 6, hundreds of vendors who lost their goods in the deadly fire held a march in Dushanbe to demand that authorities compensate them for their losses.
Dushanbe Mayor Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloyev met with the vendors on the same day and promised to arrange compensation and deals with local banks to delay credit payments due by the vendors.
The marketplace owner Nurshed Mashrabov has offered a reward of 150,000 somoni (equivalent to some 30,000 U.S. dollars) for those who help to find the incendiaries.
