260 perished in horrific crime: Two get death sentences for horrendous Baldia fire tragedy

KARACHI: After eight-long years of agony, the family members of the Baldia factory arson victims received the first phase of justice when an Anti-Terrorism Court in Karachi on Tuesday sentenced two men to death, after finding them guilty of igniting the massive blaze at the Ali Enterprises garments factory that killed 260 people and left 60 injured.

According to the prosecution, the gruesome incident was the outcome of the refusal by the factory owners to pay the “demanded amount of extortion and business partnership” in the factory sought by the MQM activists.

Abdul Rehman alias Bhola and Muhammad Zubair alias Chariya, both workers of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, were found guilty of the arson, which was the deadliest industrial disaster of the country. Besides execution, they were awarded life terms and fines for several other charges.

The ATC-VII also convicted four employees of the factory -- gatekeepers Fazal Ahmed, Arshad Mehmood, Ali Muhammad and human resource officer Shahrukh Latif -- for abetting the grisly crime and sentenced them to life imprisonment while imposing a liability to pay Diyat to the legal heirs of each victim. The court exonerated the former MQM minister for industries at that time, Rauf Siddiqui, Dr Abdul Sattar Khan, Umar Hassan Siddique and Iqbal Adeeb Khanum, who were booked for misusing influence and facilitating the extortion for lack of evidence.

The ATC also issued perpetual warrants for the arrest of former MQM handler Hammad Siddiqui, who is allegedly the chief perpetrator of the arson, and Ali Hassan Qadri, extortion facilitator, while keeping the case against them dormant.

On September 11, 2012, the garments factory located in Baldia Town was reduced to cinders along with hundreds of labourers with all exits locked. The fire was so massive that it took 48 hours for the fire tenders to douse the flames, leaving most of the bodies charred beyond recognition. Dozens of the victims remain unidentified since 2012 lay buried in the Edhi graveyard in the outskirts of the city. Some fortunate ones who managed to jump out of the factory somehow have been paralysed, while others have developed serious health conditions because of the inhalation of toxic smoke.

Initially, the case was given the cover of a deadly accident due to lack of fire and occupational safety measures. In fact, the factory owners, employees and officers of the Department of Labour, building control, electrical, civil defence, environment, social security and other relevant departments were booked for criminal negligence. However suspicions of the blaze as a result of a criminal undertaking continued to linger. They were found to be true when in February 2015, the Rangers submitted a Joint Investigation Team’s report in the Sindh High Court, revealing the factory fire to be terrorizing tale of a criminal syndicate backed by the MQM, which was the most dreaded political party, then.

The Rangers led Jit quoted a confession by a suspected hitman Rizwan Qureshi, who is now on the run, that the factory was set on fire because the owners had refused to pay extortion to Hammad, who was the head of MQM’s Karachi Tanzeemi Committee.

Later, another JIT was formed to probe into these allegations and it also found that Hammad had demanded from the factory owners through Rehman Rs250 million. When the owners instead offered to pay Rs10 million, Hammad allegedly ordered his men to set the factory on fire.

The court found Zubair, who was also employed at the factory on the recommendations of the party’s local office, guilty of igniting the blaze. Many witnesses deposed before the court of Zubair dumping incendiary chemicals into the factory for the purpose and then preventing people from escaping the fire. Rauf Siddiqui, who held the portfolio of industries and commerce minister of Sindh back then, got an FIR registered against the factory owners to pressurise them from speaking about the facts of the case, according to the prosecution.

The harassed owners through some middlemen, Khan and the Qadri brothers, were told to settle the case by paying Rs59,800,000 to the MQM which would be distributed as compensation among the families of the victims, the prosecution added.

The amount was paid but it never reached the victims, the prosecution said. Instead, the money was used to purchase a plot 175/B in Block-C, Unit-6 of Latifabad in Hyderabad in the name of Ms Khanum. No details were immediately available about her identity.

Following the re-investigation, the case was referred for trial under the Anti-Terrorism Act and an ATC commenced the trial in February 2018. In over 170 hearings, the court examined over 400 witnesses -- including the explosive testimony by the factory owners, Bhaila family, who were acquitted as one of the victims. Arshad Bhaila, owner and director of the Baldia factory, giving a sworn testimony via video-link from Pakistan Embassy in Dubai, said that former Sindh governor Ishratul Ibad forced him through former Citizen-Police Liaison Committee chief Ahmed Chinoy to pay the victim families from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement platform or face consequences.

Bhaila said that the MQM used to take Rs1.5 million to Rs2.5 million monthly extortion but in 2012, Siddiqui through Rehman demanded Rs250 million or partnership in the business. He added that due to the MQM’s intense harassment, he was forced to ponder switching the business to Bangladesh. The court determined 12 points during the trial, including:

1. Whether Rehman and Zubair with their common intention and object, demanded extortion from the factory owners at the instigation of absconding accused Hammad and on refusal threatened to face dire consequences?

2. Whether Rauf got the FIR registered after occurrence being leader of MQM by pressurising the police against factory owners, besides receiving an amount of Rs40 to Rs50 million from the factory owners for their bail, on the pretext to withdraw them from the case?

3. Whether human resource officer Shahrukh Latif tried to help the labourers escape the fire or did not do so as part of criminal negligence at the instigation and in connivance with Rehman, Zubair and their other accomplices?

4. Whether gatekeepers Fazal Ahmed, Arshad Mehmood, Ali Muhammad under the influence, instigation and connivance of Rehman, Zubair and their other accomplices, kept the exit doors of factory locked, when the fire raged inside the factory and did not take active and serious measures to help the workers to escape?

5. Whether Qadri brothers deposited the extorted Rs50 million into the bank account of their father Siddiq Hassan Qadri on the pretext that said amount would be distributed to compensate the victims from the MQM platform?

6. Whether Sattar Khan and Khanum with their common intention and object got transferred an amount of Rs.50,000,000 with connivance of Qadri brothers and a known builder of Hyderabad for the purchase of a 1,000 sq. yards property in Latifabad

The court found Abdul Rehman alias Bhola and Muhammad Zubair alias Chariya, Latif and Muhammad guilty of the offences but exonerated others after the prosecution could not prove the charges on them.

Besides death sentence, under other charges, Rehman and Zubair will undergo life imprisonment and pay an accumulated fine of Rs1.4 million each. In case of default, they will undergo further 4.5 years more in the prison.

The convicted factory employees were imposed an accumulated fine of Rs300,000 and ordered to pay Diyat, equivalent to 30,360 grams of silver rated at Rs2,777,353, to the legal heirs of each victim. All the sentences will run concurrently, therefore, the longest punishment will be counted as the total time in imprisonment which at maximum is 25 years and at minimum 15 years, according to legal experts.

Meanwhile, the Ali Enterprises Factory Fire Affectees Association chairperson Saeeda Khatoon expressed dissatisfaction at the verdict, saying that she deemed the factory owners responsible for the mayhem. She said that the factory owners were provided systematic escape.

Khatoon, who lost her only 18-year-old son Aijaz Ahmed in the blaze, added that the victims association will decide the future course of action after consulting their partners. The National Trade Union Federation general secretary Nasir Mansoor called the judgment a “moth eaten verdict.” He said that the factory owners who were equally responsible for the fire, for denying safety to workers, were given a clean chit and only the lower tier of perpetrators were granted punishment. Mansoor said that they were looking into the verdict and after their meeting with the AEFFAA on Wednesday (today) will issue their formal response to it. He added that it was murder of justice that the powerful were spared and low key accused were taken to the task.

The AEFFAA and NTUF, in collaboration with their international partners, have been campaigning for justice to the victims of the fire. Due to their struggle, the German company KiK, which procured most of the products made at Ali Enterprises, paid the victims a long term compensation through the International Labor Organization.

Independent opinions suggest that regardless of the cause of fire, casualties occurred because the factory lacked basic occupational health and safety standards and the building design was flawed. According to London-based research group Forensic Architecture, which conducted an analysis of the fire using computer simulation, inadequate safety measures at the factory led to the catastrophic death toll.