New charge sheet says Baldia factory attack was on Hammad Siddiqui’s orders

Karachi

The investigation officer (IO) of the Baldia factory fire case on Tuesday submitted a supplementary charge sheet in an anti-terrorism court (ATC) that states that the factory was set ablaze on the orders of Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) suspended Karachi Tanzeemi Committee (KTC) chief, Hammad Siddiqui.

The Baldia factory fire case is now being heard by an anti-terrorism court (ATC) after the case was referred to the ATC’s administrative judge on August 27.

The fresh charge sheet reads that the fire at Ali Enterprises, the garments factory located in Baldia Town, was set on fire by miscreants belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) over non-payment of extortion money.

Moreover, the owners and a few employees of the ill-fated Ali Enterprises who had previously been cited as co-accused in the case, have now been included as witnesses after the police had declared them innocent. 

When informed of this development, the court endorsed the plea to take the owners as witnesses and not co-accused as they had been found to be innocent.

According to Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) Sajid Mehboob, the name of another MQM activist, Zubair alias Chariya, was also deleted since the investigators could not find any proof of his involvement.

Hammad Siddiqui and Rehman alias Bhola have been declared as absconders, and the charge sheet has mentioned 58 people as prosecution witnesses. It claims that the accused had demanded around Rs250 million from the factory owners as ‘protection money’. 

Some senior leaders of the MQM, it adds, had tried to divert the direction of the incident and create confusion to save the real culprits. It further alleged that the accused had also demanded a share in the factory. The factory owners had agreed to pay Rs10 million. 

Later, Ali Hassan Qadri, a close aide of Anis Qaimkhani, had received more than Rs50 million from the owners to settle the dispute and to pay compensation to the victims. The victims, however, were never compensated by the accused Ali Hassan Qadri, the charge sheet further read. 

In an earlier supplementary charge sheet, the incident, considered the worst industrial tragedy in the country’s history with 259 workers having been burnt alive, has been termed a ‘planned terrorist activity’ and not an accident.