Factory fire: Govt told to speed up victims’ identification

Sindh High Court orders authorities to come up with the amount of compensation paid.

KARACHI: Finally there’s some hope for some 70 families whose beloved remain unidentified almost a month after the tragic Baldia factory fire.

The Sindh High Court has told the Sindh government to speed up the DNA matching process to identify the remaining victims of the country’s worst industrial disaster. The court has also ordered the authorities to submit the complete details of those killed or injured in the tragedy and provide compensation to the bereaved families.

On Monday, Justice Maqbool Baqir, heading a two-member bench, was hearing five similar petitions filed by different non-governmental organisations seeking judicial inquiry of the garment factory inferno that claimed 258 lives on September 11.

The petitioners’ lawyer, Faisal Siddiqui, moved a miscellaneous application to call complete details from the Sindh government of how many government departments or private bodies had announced compensation and who had so far given the money to the victims’ families or the survivors.

He added that nearly 70 bodies of people killed in the tragedy have still not been identified and the court should direct the government departments to accelerate the process of DNA testing.

Allowing the plea, the court gave 10 days to the authorities to provide the complete details of the victims and survivors of the tragedy and the amount of compensation, if paid, to anyone.

The judges also ordered the government to speed up the identification of unidentified victims and submit its report on the next hearing date.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 9^th, 2012.