Two hundred and sixty people were killed in the fire at Ali Enterprises garments factory in Baldia Town on September 11, 2012. PHOTO: FILE
A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto, directed the investigating officer to appear on November 24.
Nearly 259 workers died inside the locked premises of the readymade garments factory - Ali Enterprises - allegedly set ablaze after its owners refused to pay Rs500 million in extortion. The investigators later tracked down Muhammad Zubair alias Lala Charia.
Charia later approached the high court against the police for booking and arresting him in the case.
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On the last hearing, the judges had sought a progress report from the investigation officer and the anti-terrorism court which was conducting trial.
During Friday's proceedings, the judges took up the trial court's progress report, which stated that the accused persons facing trial were to be provided with copies of the case. The report stated that the accused persons had yet to be indicted in the case.
Advocate Muhammad Tamaz Khan, who represented Charia, alleged that his client was arrested in light of the alleged confessional statement given by the co-accused Abdul Rehman alias Bhola to the investigators.
He argued that neither had Charia recorded any statement before the judicial magistrate under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, nor had he given any confessional statement.
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The lawyer alleged that the case related to the fire at the factory was made merely on the basis of the joint investigation team report.
Advocate Khan argued that the investigators had not arrested any of the leaders or activists said to be associated with a political party, whom the JIT had named in its findings. Therefore, he pleaded to the court to grant bail and order Charia’s release.
Rangers’ prosecutor
On the other hand, Sajid Mehboob Sheikh, a special prosecutor for the Rangers, maintained that considerable progress had been made in the case in the light of the statements recorded by the factory owners before the JIT.
He insisted that Charia, Bhola and others were the main accused in the case, adding that the trial court had already dismissed their bail applications.
The prosecutor said the accused persons, who had set the factory building on fire, were associated with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and had confessed to the crime. He argued that the fire at the factory did not break out accidentally but was deliberately caused by the accused persons.
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"More than 250 people died in the incident," said Sheikh. He informed the judges that Bhola, an MQM activist, had already been arrested while the trial court had declared MQM Karachi Tanzeemi Committee's incharge Hammad Siddiqui a proclaimed offender.
After hearing arguments, the bench summoned the former investigation officer of the case to appear in the court along with the complete record relating to the case. The hearing was fixed on November 24.
Case history
Nearly two-and-half-year after the fire, the Rangers filed a report of the joint investigation team in the high court in February 2015, revealing that MQM leaders were behind the fire - the deadliest in the country's industrial history - over refusal to pay Rs500 million extortion by its owners.
In his confessional statement, Bhola had alleged that Hammad, Rauf Siddiqui and other senior MQM leaders were involved in the fire as the factory owner had refused to pay them extortion.
Bhola said that he along with Asgher Baig, Charia and other accomplices, had set the factory on fire.
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Therefore, in January this year, Rauf, the then provincial minister for commerce and industries, was granted interim bail before arrest by the administrative judge of the anti-terrorism courts against a surety of Rs100,000.
In July Rauf withdrew his bail application in the trial court after the police did not charge him with any offence due to lack of evidence.
Sheikh had told the court that the police had added Rauf’s name in the second column of the charge sheet in blue ink and the court could summon him if sufficient evidence surfaced against him.
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