Orient labs: Police arrest owners after LHC rejects bail plea
Prosecutor general says company’s manufacturing licence had expired.
LAHORE:
The owners of Orient Labs, a pharmaceutical company whose factory on Multan Road collapsed and killed 25 workers last month, were denied bail and arrested on Thursday.
Justice Kazim Raza Shamsi of the Lahore High Court (LHC) dismissed the pre-arrest bail applications of brothers Zafar, Zaheer and Zubair Iqbal after hearing the arguments of their lawyer Khurram Latif Khosa and Prosecutor General Sadaqat Ali Khan.
A heavy contingent of police, in uniform and in civvies, remained present in the LHC during the hearing. After the judge dismissed the bail plea, friends and relatives of the accused asked Crimes Investigation Agency SP Liaqat Ali to come into the courtroom and handed the brothers into his custody.
The SP assured them they would be treated well. Addressing them in the courtroom, he said: “You and your advocate are my brothers. No illegal treatment will be meted out to you.” The accused handed over their belongings to their relatives in the courtroom.
During the hearing, Zafar Iqbal and Zaheer Iqbal suddenly shouted at the prosecutor as he was giving his arguments. “You are wrong. Do not treat respectable people like this,” they shouted. They also tried to reach the prosecutor but he was too far away. Their lawyer and friends calmed them and gave them water to drink.
The prosecutor general and the counsel for the accused also exchanged barbs, portraying each other as puppets acting on instruction from high-ups. Khosa said the Punjab government was politicising the case and the chief minister had said publically that a highly influential person was backing the owners of the company.
Khan, the prosecutor general, reacted angrily to the suggestion that he was being instructed from above. “I am answerable to God and no one else,” he said, adding he would quit his job the moment he felt he was being pressured to act in a certain way. He said he did not belong to any political party. “Khosa has to answer some PPP high-up but I do not,” he said.
In his arguments on the petition, Khan said the accused did not have a licence to manufacture any kind of medicine and they had presented an expired licence to the court. He said they had applied for a new licence but they were not given one.
About the factory on Multan Road, he said they had placed heavy machinery in a fragile mud structure. The vibration from the machinery had caused cracks in the walls of the factory building and in neighbouring houses. He said that by continuing their operations in hazardous circumstances, they had demonstrated criminal intent. He said they had pretended to be pharmacists when they were not. They had appointed a boiler operator who did not qualify for the job.
Khan said they had fled after hearing the lower court order dismissing their bail pleas. He said that the owners of Margalla Towers, the apartment complex in Islamabad that was the only building in the capital to collapse in the 2005 earthquake, had not been given bail before their trial in the Supreme Court.
Khosa argued that the documents placed before the court were genuine. He said he had filed his affidavit and the PGP should file a counter affidavit to prove their inauthenticity. He said that by surrendering to the court, his clients had demonstrated that they believed in the rule of law.
He said that it was wrong to charge his clients with murder. “They are not psychopaths who wanted a lot of people dead. They are innocent businessmen and deserve to be given the relief of bail,” he said.
Khosa said more than 2,000 industrial units were functioning in Lahore without permission. Justice Shamsi remarked that it seemed that the government had been waiting for a tragedy before acting against such industries.
An FIR has been registered against the owners of the factory at Sabzazar police station under various sections of the penal code including murder. They had asked the LHC for pr-arrest bail and the exclusion of the murder charge.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 9th, 2012.
The owners of Orient Labs, a pharmaceutical company whose factory on Multan Road collapsed and killed 25 workers last month, were denied bail and arrested on Thursday.
Justice Kazim Raza Shamsi of the Lahore High Court (LHC) dismissed the pre-arrest bail applications of brothers Zafar, Zaheer and Zubair Iqbal after hearing the arguments of their lawyer Khurram Latif Khosa and Prosecutor General Sadaqat Ali Khan.
A heavy contingent of police, in uniform and in civvies, remained present in the LHC during the hearing. After the judge dismissed the bail plea, friends and relatives of the accused asked Crimes Investigation Agency SP Liaqat Ali to come into the courtroom and handed the brothers into his custody.
The SP assured them they would be treated well. Addressing them in the courtroom, he said: “You and your advocate are my brothers. No illegal treatment will be meted out to you.” The accused handed over their belongings to their relatives in the courtroom.
During the hearing, Zafar Iqbal and Zaheer Iqbal suddenly shouted at the prosecutor as he was giving his arguments. “You are wrong. Do not treat respectable people like this,” they shouted. They also tried to reach the prosecutor but he was too far away. Their lawyer and friends calmed them and gave them water to drink.
The prosecutor general and the counsel for the accused also exchanged barbs, portraying each other as puppets acting on instruction from high-ups. Khosa said the Punjab government was politicising the case and the chief minister had said publically that a highly influential person was backing the owners of the company.
Khan, the prosecutor general, reacted angrily to the suggestion that he was being instructed from above. “I am answerable to God and no one else,” he said, adding he would quit his job the moment he felt he was being pressured to act in a certain way. He said he did not belong to any political party. “Khosa has to answer some PPP high-up but I do not,” he said.
In his arguments on the petition, Khan said the accused did not have a licence to manufacture any kind of medicine and they had presented an expired licence to the court. He said they had applied for a new licence but they were not given one.
About the factory on Multan Road, he said they had placed heavy machinery in a fragile mud structure. The vibration from the machinery had caused cracks in the walls of the factory building and in neighbouring houses. He said that by continuing their operations in hazardous circumstances, they had demonstrated criminal intent. He said they had pretended to be pharmacists when they were not. They had appointed a boiler operator who did not qualify for the job.
Khan said they had fled after hearing the lower court order dismissing their bail pleas. He said that the owners of Margalla Towers, the apartment complex in Islamabad that was the only building in the capital to collapse in the 2005 earthquake, had not been given bail before their trial in the Supreme Court.
Khosa argued that the documents placed before the court were genuine. He said he had filed his affidavit and the PGP should file a counter affidavit to prove their inauthenticity. He said that by surrendering to the court, his clients had demonstrated that they believed in the rule of law.
He said that it was wrong to charge his clients with murder. “They are not psychopaths who wanted a lot of people dead. They are innocent businessmen and deserve to be given the relief of bail,” he said.
Khosa said more than 2,000 industrial units were functioning in Lahore without permission. Justice Shamsi remarked that it seemed that the government had been waiting for a tragedy before acting against such industries.
An FIR has been registered against the owners of the factory at Sabzazar police station under various sections of the penal code including murder. They had asked the LHC for pr-arrest bail and the exclusion of the murder charge.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 9th, 2012.