Baldia suspect arrested

The fire in a garment factory in the Baldia district of Karachi in September 2012 was one of the deadliest in Pakistan’s dreadful history of industrial incidents involving fatalities. At least 255 people died, and there has been a protracted and far from straightforward set of investigations ever since. Now a man named as one of the main suspects that started the fire has been arrested in Bangkok, said Thai police on Saturday 3^rd December. He was arrested in the Nana area on an Interpol warrant initiated by Pakistan, and will be repatriated as soon as the necessary formalities are completed. It is now possible that some of the fundamental questions that sit behind this tragedy will be answered.

The arrested man Abdul Rehman alias Bhola is suspected of being part of a gang that was extorting money from the owners of the garment factory, and when there was a default or a refusal to pay up to $200,000 then the Ali Enterprises factory was torched and the tragedy unfolded. There was a judicial investigation into the fire and its conclusions were damning; with implications not only relating to the fire and its victims but to the whole culture of health and safety at work and of employers’ responsibility towards employees, the level of duty-of-care they may be expected to exercise. The judicial report highlighted the lack of emergency exits and those that did exist being blocked or chained, the lack of safety training for workers and most damningly the failure of government inspectors to either notify the owners of the deficits or proceed to enforcement as is their responsibility.

After the initial investigation the fire was deemed an accident and a murder case against the owners lodged though the case never came to trial. But gradually a darker scenario emerged. The investigation was re-opened and the police came to believe that a gang of extortionists was behind the fire — but who was behind the gang of extortionists? The man arrested, Abdul Rehman, who is alleged to be the frontman of the extortion gang was at the time of the fire also a sector in-charge of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). The Joint Investigation Team that reinvestigated the case in 2016 came to the conclusion that the incident was ‘planned sabotage and terrorist activity’ — which is very different to a simple criminal attempt to extract money and having ramifications and implications that reach into the world of politics and political links to terrorist activity.

It is now for the matter to move forward judicially and procedurally. The suspect has to be returned to Pakistan and charges filed, a court hearing at which the evidence against him and possibly others who have also left the country presented, and a judicial decision arrived at. It is not for this newspaper to pre-empt any future verdicts in a matter that is still some way sub-judice; but we do note that there is at least a possibility that linkages between the alleged offence and its alleged perpetrator and a political party may of necessity be explored both in the investigation and in open court. This is right and proper and we would expect no less if the matter is to be brought fairly and impartially into the public domain. Political terrorism is no more acceptable than any other form of terrorism, and equally must be punished to the full extent of the law.

The other aspect of this calamity — and mass murder if that it is proved to be — lies in holding to account the owners of the factory that condemned their employees to a dreadful death in the event of a fire. Had proper precautions been taken the deaths may have been fewer and lives saved. There is much still to learn about all the circumstances surrounding the Baldia fire, but how well learned the lessons are is an open question.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2016.

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