Baldia factory fire case: ATC summons factory owners, issues warrants for others

Rejects police charge-sheet giving clean chit to 13 suspects

KARACHI: The anti-terrorism court (ATC) conducting the trial of the Baldia factory fire case has rejected in its initial order the police move to save the factory owners, manager and others.

The order, passed on September 16 and made public on Monday, read that "serious allegations are leveled against the factory owners that they had locked [the] emergency gates which resulted in the death of 259 workers."

The death toll in the fire at Ali Enterprises garments factory in Baldia Town on September 11, 2012 has, however, reached 260 after a girl succumbed to her wounds in December two years ago.

The ATC-II judge stated that "I have gone through this challan (charge sheet) as well as the JIT (joint investigation team) report and do not agree with the IO (investigation officer) who has shown accused number one to 13 in blue ink (specific colours define different kinds of suspects such as those in custody, absconding and released) as there is no evidence against them."

The 13 people who were given a clean chit recently are the factory owners Abdul Aziz Bhaila, his sons Arshad and Shahid, manager Muhammad Mansoor, gatekeepers Fazal Ahmed, Arshad Mehmood and Ali Muhammad, another employee Shahrukh, Hyderabad-based businessmen Ali Hassan Qadri and Umar Hassan Qadri, Zubair alias Charya, Dr Abdul Sattar and Iqbal Adeeb Khanum.

The judge observed that the owners and the manager allegedly closed or ordered closure of the factory's gates which resulted in the mass deaths. Regarding the other suspects, the judge observed that they allegedly abetted the crime one way or the other by extorting money on the pretext of distributing it among the victims' families.

The extortion factor surfaced following the revelation of an under-trial prisoner who reportedly said that the factory was set on fire over non-payment of extortion money to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). This led to a reinvestigation of the case and the role of more people came to the forefront.

According to the JIT report, the then Karachi Tanzimi Committee in-charge of the MQM, Hammad Siddiqui, Baldia Town sector in-charge Rehman alias Bhola and Farooq Saleem demanded Rs200 million as protection money from the owners which they were refused. In reaction, the factory was set on fire. The workers were trapped inside the two-storey building as there were no emergency exits and the main gate was locked. After the incident, the owners were harassed by an MQM minister.

Meanwhile, the Qadri brothers, who had contacts with the then MQM deputy convener Anis Kaimkhani, brokered a deal with the party for the owners. Around Rs60 million was deposited in the bank account of Dr Sattar, said to be a close confidant of Kaimkhani. The amount, as per the deal, was supposed to be distributed among the victims' families through the party platform as aid, but this never happened. Instead, a bungalow was purchased in Hyderabad with that money in the name of Khanum.

Contrary to the facts mentioned in the JIT report, the charge sheet is silent on many points like the name of the MQM minister involved. It has also not upheld Kaimkhani as a suspect. Moreover, the roles of a former prime minister belonging to Pakistan Peoples Party who helped the factory owners secure protective bail from the Lahore High Court and a leader of the same party who allegedly took Rs150 million to settle the case have not been described in detail, nor have they been implicated.

Rejecting the police report, the ATC has taken cognisance of the crime against the 13 people. It has summoned the factory owners and the manager for their statements while issuing non-bailable warrants of arrest for the remaining suspects.

The Ali Enterprises Fire Affectees' Association and those supporting the victims' families like the National Trade Union Federation and European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights have called the order a 'remarkable decision'.

The development has taken place a week after international actors, such as the International Labor Organization and the German government, facilitated a compensation deal of more than $5 million for the victims with the German clothing retailer KiK, which procured more than 70% of the products made at the ill-fated factory.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th, 2016.