Baldia factory fire caused by extortionists: JIT

Investigators take owners’ statements in Dubai, head to London to record their father’s statement

KARACHI:

Three years after the deadly fire claimed more than 250 lives, the investigators revealed that an extortionist group was behind the attack.

Exactly which group set the garment factory on fire to teach the owners a lesson for not paying extortion is a fact that continues to baffle the joint investigation team (JIT) formed to probe the city's worst industrial disaster.

The four-member investigation team, headed by DIG Sultan Khawaja and DIG Munir Shaikh reached Dubai on Sunday. They recorded the statements of the Bhaila brothers — Arshad and Shahid, the owners of the ill-fated factory Ali Enterprises — who had refused to visit Pakistan for the investigations.

Read: Baldia factory fire: Three years, as many reports and the trial goes on

Their statements were recorded separately, both on paper and in front of a camera, at the Pakistan consulate. The team will now fly to London to record the statement of their father. "The statements of the Bhaila brothers have been completed but we cannot share the details as they have requested us to keep their statement confidential," said Malik Abdul Wahid Khan, the press counsellor at the Pakistan consulate in Dubai.



Meanwhile, a senior police official, who is privy to the developments, told The Express Tribune that the Bhaila brothers claimed that the fire was not accidental. One extortionist group was behind the incident. "We had been providing them extortion money before the fire incident but the relations turned sour before the incident," the officer quoted the owners as saying.

"They [extortionists] warned us that they will set our factory ablaze as their demands were not being fulfilled."

The confessional statements do not, however, carry the name of a group or a political party that was making extortion demands.

Little progress to show

On September 11, 2012, Ali Enterprises caught fire and took away the lives of 259 workers trapped inside. Even though it has been three years, the investigators have to rely on the owners' claims to establish the cause of the fire. There is no scientific evidence.

In the immediate aftermath of the fire, an inquiry team led by DIG Sultan Khawaja, who is heading the current JIT, declared that the fire was accidental. The investigations were shelved after this inquiry report until the Rangers submitted another report in the Sindh High Court and accused the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) for the incident.

Read: Are we waiting for another Baldia tragedy?

The Rangers quoted MQM worker Rizwan Qureshi, who was arrested in some other case, confessing that party activists set the factory ablaze after the owners refused to pay extortion. Qureshi was released on bail some time later and his whereabouts are unknown.

However, the MQM denied its involvement and termed the charges as 'fictitious' and 'biased'. It had also demanded a reinvestigation into the inferno. The Sindh government formed another JIT after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ordered reinvestigation during an apex committee meeting at Governor House in February this year.

Initially, the then Crime Branch AIG Khadim Hussain Bhatti was appointed as the chief of the new JIT but, by mid-March, he was replaced by the then Rapid Response Force chief DIG Aftab Pathan. Finally, DIG Khawaja was given task to once again probe the fire despite his refusal to investigate.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 10^th, 2015.