Pre-arrest bail of three Mehran Town factory fire suspects extended

A district & sessions court on Saturday extended the pre-arrest bail of three people booked in the Mehran Town factory fire case, and told the investigating officer to submit the record of the factory by Tuesday.

Sixteen workers were killed on August 27 as a fire swept through the BM Luggage Industry located in Korangi’s Mehran Town, following which the police booked factory owner Hassan Meetha, building owner Faisal Tariq, factory manager Syed Imran Ali Zaidi, supervisors Zafar and Rehan, and watchman Syed Zarin for manslaughter.

At the outset of the hearing, Meetha, Tariq and Zaidi moved applications through their attorneys for the confirmation of their pre-arrest bail by the district & sessions judge (East).

The same court in a previous hearing had allowed interim bail to the three suspects against a surety of Rs500,000 each, seeking arguments from the state prosecutor over the maintainability of the bail.

The prosecutor opposed the requests for the confirmation of the interim bail, contending that Meetha had been illegally running the factory in a residential area, and had neglected the workplace safety measures, resulting in the loss of workers’ lives.

He said that granting bail to the suspect could hamper the prosecution’s case because he was a British national and could escape from the country to avoid a trial.

The judge asked the prosecutor if the government had known about the illegal commercial activity being carried out in a residential area, and if so, what action had it taken to stop it.

Meanwhile, Advocate Haseeb Jamali, who represented Tariq, argued that his client was innocent because he had no connection to the case except that he had rented out the space to Meetha, who actually was the owner of the factory. Jamali added that his client could not be held responsible for the act.

Advocate Hassan Sabir, who represented Meetha, argued that his client was being subjected to a media trial by falsely portraying the case as a sequel of the 2012 Ali Enterprises fire incident in which 260 workers had been killed.

Sabir said that in the case of the BM Luggage Industry, no exits of the factory were locked nor were any chemicals used in the factory that ignited the fire. He added that fire played havoc because of the negligence of the government authorities.

He said that his client had got the facility from Tariq in 2019 on rent after he had relocated his business from Dubai to Karachi, courtesy of the announcement by Prime Minister Imran Khan for overseas Pakistanis to invest in the country to help boost its economy.

Sabir claimed that K-Electric had suspended power supply to the factory, which was being run on a power generator, saying that when the electricity supply was restored, it might have caused an electric short-circuit that caused the fire.

He argued that two fire engines were stationed at Brooks Chowrangi without water, which delayed the rescue operation, saying that the lack of initiating the cooling process in time had resulted in the deaths of the workers.

He also argued that the provincial government department of industries, the Sindh Building Control Authority, the fire brigade and civil defence should also be nominated in the case because negligence on their part was responsible for the deaths.

He said that suspending a couple of officials would not serve any purpose because there were around 200 factories being run in the entire industrial zone, where 2,000 workers were working, but the authorities were probably waiting for another tragic incident to take place to spring into action.

After hearing the arguments, the judge turned down the request of the defence counsels for the confirmation of the interim bail for the clients, and instead extended the same for three days. Meanwhile, the judge directed the IO to submit the relevant record of the case on the next date of hearing.

According to the FIR, the deaths took place on the upper portion of the building that allegedly lacked an emergency exit.