Iran fire blamed on dissidents

Press, 22 August 1978, Page 8

Iran fire blamed on dissidents

NZPA-Reuter Teheran Policemen investigating a fire which killed 377 people in a western Iranian cinema have blamed the disaster on sabotage, and say they have arrested several suspects. Officials said the fire in the western city of Abadan — one of the worst disasters of its kind anywhere — had been the work of dissidents who opposed the Shah’s Government. Many of the dead were women and children who had been in the 700-seat cinema watching : family film when flames swept through the hall on Saturday evening. Scores were trampled to death or asphyxiated as they struggled to reach the exits. Some reports said only two exits were open.

The police would release no details yesterday other than to say suspects had been detained, and it appeared it would be some time before the results of the investigations became known. An official account of the disaster by the Government news agency, Pars, said only 1-0 people had escaped alive. However newspaper reports said 100 people had escaped unhurt and more than 220 had been injured. The police questioned survivors in hospital in their search for clues.

Among those arrested, according to newspaper reports, was the cinema manager and a caretaker. But it appeared they were merely being questioned. Abadan, a centre of Iran’s oil industry near the top of the Gulf,' went into mass mourning for the fire victims. They were buried in mass graves under hastily prepared white shrouds required by Muslim rites. Shops in towns all over Khuzestan province closed

for the day in mourning for what the Prime Minister (Mr Jamshid Amouzegar) called a national catastrophe. Details of the blaze remained uncertain. Some witnesses said small explosions had been heard. Others said petrol had been poured outside the cinema entrances to create sheets of flame and drive people back as they struggled to escape the inferno. Officials said the fire had been methodically started at the four corners of the building in central Abadan, and official sources said the heat from the flames had been so intense that firemen had been able to get no closer than 50 metres from the blaze.

They struggled for six hours to put out the flames, but the cinema was gutted and most of the bodies charred beyond recognition. It was assumed by many in Teheran that the Abadan fire was part of the same attacks which have coincided with a wave of violent antiShah demonstrations in more than a dozen Iranian towns. Several thousand people demonstrated in Abadan against the al ;ged sabotage — apparently the latest in a chain of seemingly politically inspired attacks on cinemas, restaurants, and other public targets.

While the official probe was under way, however, there was no Government comment directly pinning the Abadan fire on religious or Leftist opponents of the Shah’s regime. No group has claimed responsibility. ■

The Government on Sunday night ordered financial help for the families of those killed. But no emergency Cabinet sessions were announced and there was no national official mourning.