Orient labs: Hearing of bail petitions adjourned till Friday

Judge tells police to register FIR against SHO who didn’t act over reopening sealed factory.

LAHORE:

Additional District and Sessions Judge Chaudhry Nazir Ahmed has adjourned till February 17 the bail petition of the owners of Orient Labs, a drug manufacturer whose factory on Multan Road collapsed on February 6, killing dozens of people.

On Wednesday, the petitioners sought an adjournment as their lawyer Sardar Khurtam Khosa was busy in the Supreme Court. Orient Labs Chief Executive Zaheer Iqbal and Directors Zafar Iqbal and Zubair Iqbal – all brothers – said in their bail plea that the FIR against them over the building collapse was registered with malicious intent.

The judge directed the investigation officer of the case to also register an FIR against the policeman who was posted as station house officer in 2007-08, as he had not taken action against the owners for opening a sealed factory, as alleged in the FIR against the petitioners. The judge told the IO to bring a copy of the FIR to the next hearing.

The petitioners, who are on pre-arrest bail, said in their petition that they ran a legal business at which an “unfortunate incident” took place, causing the factory to collapse.

They said the factory’s collapse had caused them great distress financially as well as because of the deaths of 26 workers.

The petitioners said that they were the “aggrieved party” in this case. They said the FIR against them under Sections 302 (murder), 324 (attempted murder), 290 (public nuisance), 291 (repeated public nuisance), 427 (mischief) and 149 (unlawful assembly) of the Pakistan Penal Code had been registered for no justifiable reason.

According to the FIR registered on the complaint of Inspector Muhammad Ashraf Sindhu of Sabzazar Police, the collapse of the Orient Lab factory had also damaged adjacent buildings, owned by Khalid Habib and Rana Amjad.

Habib and Amjad told the police that they had submitted applications to various departments to shift the factory from the residential area, but no one had listened. They also said that the factory had been sealed but later reopened.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2012.