By Abdullah Qureshi

LAHORE: Historic books of Persian gutted when a fire erupted at the library of Government College University early in morning due to a short circuit the other day, sources and eye witness told The Educationist. However, GCU Public Relations Officer Musdiq Sultan said that all the books have been saved and only some bookshelves were damaged.

According to the details, on Friday, May 19 some students passing through Persian Department saw the fumes of fire and they informed the guards. An eyewitness namely Saif-ur-Rahman, a student of GCU told The Educationist he was passing by the Persian Department building when he saw that fumes of fire were coming out of the windows of the library.

“The Persian Library contains books from the 19th Century. The incident of damages to such books was extremely sad to know. The treasure lost can never be recovered. I feel very sorry about it,” he remarked.

Another eyewitness Zainab Mansoor said that she was also there at the time of fire. “A lot of books near the circuit was completely destroyed. And the ceiling was also affected. She said the management took several steps, the emergency rescue 1122 fire brigades arrived along with an ambulance. However, some books which were houses in the library for the last many years were burned completely or partially.

When contacted GCU PRO Musadiq Sultan said the fire was erupted in the morning and the guards on duty rescued all the books. “No damage was caused to books, only the ceiling of library room is affected. We have the digital versions of the books which are little bit effected due to the fire. And there is no loss of life just the library room was effected but now the room is totally recovered, the PRO added.