Labour dept, SBCA, KDA, Civil Defence officials implicated in Korangi fire case

Police have implicated labour, building control, land and civil defence officials in the Mehran Town factory fire case, observing their criminal negligence that led to the tragedy.

Sixteen workers were killed in a blaze at the BM Luggage Industry in Mehran Town in Korangi on August 27. According to the FIR, the casualties occurred because the workers could not escape, since no emergency exits or fire safety measures were available inside the two-storey facility.

On Saturday, the judicial magistrate (East) approved the charge sheet that was submitted by the investigating officer of the case in a previous hearing after the completion of almost a month-long probe.

The IO charged the labour department’s officer Muhammad Ali, the Sindh Building Control Authority’s (SBCA) Korangi deputy director Abdul Sami, the Karachi Development Authority’s (KDA) land deputy director Irfan Hussain, and Shahabuddin of the Civil Defence in the investigation report.

He said that during the course of investigation, it transpired that the factory was located in a residential area, and these officers were supposed to stop this illegal activity, but they exhibited criminal negligence that culminated in the loss of human lives.

He requested the court to approve the inclusion of Section 119 (public servant concealing design to commit offence which it is his duty to prevent) of the Pakistan Penal Code in the charge sheet to frame the above-mentioned suspects and try them accordingly.

Section 119 reads: “Whoever, being a public servant intending to facilitate or knowing it to be likely that he will thereby facilitate the commission of an offence which it is his duty as such public servant to prevent, voluntarily conceals, by any act or illegal omission, the existence of a design to commit such offence, or makes any representation which he knows to be false respecting such design.”

An illustration of the section is: A, an officer of police, being legally bound to give information of all design as to commit robbery, which may come to his knowledge, and knowing that B designs to commit robbery, omits to give such information, with intent to facilitate the commission of that offence. Here A has by an illegal omission concealed the existence of B’s design, and is liable to punishment according to the provisions of this section.

In the report, the IO also ruled out the possibility of a short circuit causing the fire. He quoted a witness saying that he noticed smoke at 10:06am, and at that time the factory was being run on generator because of a power outage.

He also said that the fire spread rapidly because of the flammable adhesives stored on the floor. He added that no CCTV camera covered the spot where the fire started.

He further said that the samples collected from the scene were sent to the laboratory for their forensic analysis, but their reports were still awaited. He named a total of 64 witnesses in the charge sheet.

Initially, six people including building owner Faisal Tariq, his tenant and factory owner Hassan Metha, manager Imran Zaidi, gatekeeper Syed Zarin and supervisors Zafar and Rehan were booked by the police in the case. All of them have been arrested and sent to jail in judicial custody.

The magistrate has fixed September 30 as the date to supply copies of the charge sheet to the accused, and in the meantime has ordered the IO to present the newly included suspects — the government officials — in the court by the next hearing.