Baldia factory fire case: Police nominate two suspects from MQM in new charge sheet

Factory owners, 13 others declared innocent for ‘lack of evidence’


Our Correspondent August 24, 2016
More than 250 factory workers died when a garment factory in Baldia caught fire on September 11, 2012. PHOTO: FILE

KARACHI: Police submitted on Tuesday a new charge sheet in the Baldia factory fire case, nominating only two people belonging to Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) as suspects while relieving 13 others, including the factory owners, for lack of evidence.

The charge sheet, formed in light of the recent joint investigation team's report, supports the claim that the fire at Ali Enterprises garments factory in Baldia on September 11, 2012 was an act of arson and not an accident. Police have implicated MQM's former Karachi Tanzimi Committee's incharge Hammad Siddiqui, former Baldia sector incharge Rehman alias Bhola and three to four unidentified persons as the suspects behind the fire that claimed more than 250 lives.

Baldia factory fire: ‘New charge sheet in a week’

Thirteen people, out of which eight were held during the initial phase of the case, have not been recommended for trial by the police for want of evidence. They include factory owners Abdul Aziz Bhaila, his sons, Shahid and Arshad, manager Muhammad Mansoor, gatekeepers Arshad Mehmood, Ali Muhammad and Fazal Ahmed, employees Shahrukh and Zubair alias Charya, Hyderabad businessmen brothers, Ali Hasan Qadri and Umer Hasan Qadri, physician Dr Abdul Sattar Khan and a woman Iqbal Adeeb Khanum.

The charge sheet was submitted before West district's judicial magistrate, despite the fact that it was to be submitted before the anti-terrorism courts' administrative judge due to inclusion of Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA). Cases under the ATA cannot be tried in a regular court.

Baldia factory fire case: Accused approaches court for pre-arrest bail

Over this, special public prosecutor Sajid Mehmoob Sheikh clarified that they wanted to follow the procedure in which the magistrate will send the charge sheet to the relevant sessions court and then it will be referred to the relevant forum, which is the ATC administrative judge's court. The case has been re-registered under sections 384, 385, 386, 435, 436, 302, 324, 337, 109, 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code read with sections 6 and 7 of the ATA.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24th, 2016.

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