Staff Reporter
Karachi
An anti-terrorism court in Karachi on Tuesday sentenced two MQM workers, Zubair aka Charya and Abdul Rehman aka Bhola, to death in the high-profile Baldia factory fire case, eight years after the blaze claimed 264 lives.
The court acquitted MQM leader Rauf Siddiqui, then-provincial minister for commerce and industries, according to his lawyer Abid Zaman. Three others, including Iqbal Adeel Khanum and Dr Abdul Sattar Khan, were also acquitted by the court.
The factory’s four gatekeepers including Shahrukh, Fazal Ahmed, Arshad Mehmood and Ali Mohammad were convicted for facilitation.
MQM-Pakistan leader Faisal Subzwari in a tweet quoted a spokesperson for his party as saying that the acquittal of Rauf Siddiqui, a member of Rabita Committee, in the case “proves that MQM-Pakistan has nothing to do with this case”.
The spokesperson expressed sympathies with the victims and their relatives for having to wait eight years for the verdict and expressed the hope that the country’s higher courts will ensure complete justice for them.
“[We] make it clear that patronage of any anti-social and law-breaking elements neither was nor will ever be a policy of MQM-Pakistan,” the spokesperson added, according to Subzwari.
Addressing a press conference shortly after the verdict was announced, MQM leader Rauf Siddiqui said that he had resigned from his post when the incident occurred. “People don’t let go of a cleaner’s job [but] I had resigned from my post.”
He added that he was thankful for the decision announced by the court. “To this day, I can still hear the screams of the victim’s families.”
He said that he was unable to forgot the night of
the incident, which would come to his mind every time he had to appear in court.
Over 260 workers were burnt alive when the multi-storey Ali Enterprises garment factory was set on fire in Baldia Town on September 11, 2012 in what became the deadliest industrial blaze in Pakistan’s history.
Ten accused — including Siddiqui; MQM’s then-Baldia Town sector in-charge Rehman; Zubair; Hyderabad-based businessmen Dr Khan; Umar Hasan Qadri; Khanum and the industrial unit’s four gatekeepers — were charged with
setting ablaze the factory.According to a joint investigation team report made public in July, the fire was not an accident rather a “planned sabotage/ terror activity” carried out over non-payment of Rs200 million extortion and partnership in factory
profits. The report held the then head of MQM’s Karachi Tanzeemi Committee Hammad Siddiqui and Rehman Bhola responsible for the incident. The JIT was critical of the initial police investigation into the case and observed that the police dealt it in
an unprofessional manner and in a way to benefit “the offenders” instead of the victims for some “motives and gains”. It said the “fear and favour” were dominating factors in initial investigation, which affected the police performance “length and
breadth”.