‘Where is the justice?’ No charges three years after Old Montreal fire killed seven

MONTREAL – Three years after his daughter and six others were killed in a building fire in Old Montreal, Zafar Mahmood says he can’t believe the case has not been solved.

“Where is the justice? Why has it taken so many days? They haven’t yet identified the proper person,” Mahmood said Monday in an interview with The Canadian Press from Pakistan about the killing of his daughter, 31-year-old Dania Zafar.

Zafar and her childhood friend Saniya Khan, 31, were on a trip to Montreal on March 16, 2023, renting a room in the picturesque neighbourhood when a fire quickly tore through the heritage building. Six of the seven victims, including Zafar and Khan, were staying in illegal short-term rentals.

Police opened a criminal investigation into the blaze, saying shortly after the fire that they had found traces of an accelerant at the scene, which they said could explain how the flames spread so fast. But on the third anniversary of the fire, police had not yet made any arrests.

On Monday, both city police and the prosecutor’s office said they were working hard to bring the case to a close. 

“Prosecutors are ensuring that the victims and their families are kept informed of developments in the case, but we are aware that the wait remains difficult for them,” Lucas Bastien, spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office, said in an email.

But that’s not good enough for Mahmood. “At first, (police) said it was supposed to be an accident. Then they said they found accelerant and it looks like a homicide case,” Mahmood said.

“They should have been fast. They should have sorted out the things, they should have investigated, they could have put more efforts, more resources. Three years, or almost a thousand days, is too much.”

Court documents in an unrelated case have identified as a suspect Denis Bégin, who is currently serving a life sentence for a 1993 murder. The documents from Correctional Service Canada cite Montreal police testimony alleging that Bégin was filmed by a surveillance camera in the area around the building before and after the fire.

Bégin had spent 51 months on the lam after he escaped from a minimum security federal prison in February 2019; he was arrested in May 2023, a month after the deadly fire.

However, police have not publicly identified him as a suspect.

On Monday, portraits of the victims were affixed to the stone facade of the building — all that remains of the structure built in 1890. Aside from Zafar and Khan, the other victims are Camille Maheux, 76; An Wu, 31; Nathan Sears, 35; Walid Belkahla, 18; and Charlie Lacroix, 18. 

Mahmood says Zafar — his eldest daughter — had moved to Toronto from Pakistan to work in publishing, and was one of his best friends. The two spoke nearly every day, checking in on each other’s health, recommending places to visit after watching online travel logs.

He described the 31-year-old as very intelligent but shy, someone who had a library filled with thousands of books. She was headstrong and made her own way through the world. “She was so beautiful, her eyes,” he says. “She looked like a princess.”

Zafar was also a lover of history and chose to stay at the building because she knew it reflected a piece of Montreal’s past. Known as the William-Watson-Ogilvie building, it originally housed the offices of a flour company and was gradually converted to residential use between the late 1960s and the 1980s, with the office of an architecture firm remaining on the ground floor. 

Mahmood adds Zafar was planning a trip back home to Pakistan right before the fatal fire. Since her death, he says the joy in life has been taken away from him. “It has changed the concept of life, just how harsh life can be,” he says.

He’s haunted by the lack of answers from the city, lawyers and police in Montreal. He said he filed a lawsuit against the City of Montreal and the owner of the building that caught fire, adding that there have been many delays in the legal proceedings. 

“My aim is only to identify the shortcomings: who was responsible, what corrective measures have been taken to ensure our kids are safe from these accidents?”

The fire has led to a series of lawsuits involving relatives of fire victims, people injured in the fire, the City of Montreal and the owner of the building. 

In an email on Monday, Camille Bégin, spokesperson for the City of Montreal, said the administration won’t comment on the case amid all the legal proceedings. The city, she said, “is constantly reviewing and improving the practices of its fire prevention and response teams.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 16, 2026.