It was about 12:00pm, around three hours after the fire that ravaged Mohammadpur's Krishi Market was brought under control.

Ashraf Uddin, the owner of a jewellery shop, and his three employees were frantically searching the wreckage for any remaining traces of burnt or melted gold and silver.

After lamenting for hours, their voices had already broken down and no words were coming out of their mouths.

Jewellery shop employees were searching the wreckage for any remaining traces of burnt or melted gold and silver. Photo: Star

Sensing the presence of the reporters, Ashraf said, with his voice trembling, that he had lost all of his valuables.

"I couldn't get anything out of the shop. Some of the gold and silver that I had burned and melted. The fire took everything. What it left is just my misfortune," Ashraf, who has been doing the business since 2006, said.

Photo: Star

He claimed that the fire gutted valuables of Tk 80 lakh in his shop. "I managed the major share of the investment by selling my ancestral land in Kishoreganj," he said.

Like Ashraf, Al Arif and with his wife, who run the jeweller next-door, were also seen rummaging through the wreckage. "I lost valuables of at least Tk 15 lakh," Arif said.

Photo: Star

The fire that broke out at Mohammadpur's Krishi Market earlier this morning gutted 217 shops out of a total of 317, according to estimates from a Dhaka North City Corporation official.

Of them, at least 10 jewellery shops out of 25 were damaged.