Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered the suspension of eight senior officials at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), a major federal hospital in Islamabad, and directed that criminal proceedings be initiated against them following a fire that killed 14 infants in the hospital's neonatal nursery. The decision followed the presentation of an inquiry committee's interim report, which found serious failures including locked emergency exits, absent fire evacuation procedures for the neonatal unit, and security personnel who impeded the initial response — with conditions inside the nursery deteriorating catastrophically within approximately two minutes of the fire's outbreak. While the precise ignition source has not yet been conclusively established, the prime minister vowed there would be no leniency for those responsible, saying the deaths represented an act of criminal negligence that had left the entire nation grieving.