Recording owners’ testimonies through video-link challenged in SHC

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Wednesday adjourned the hearing of the Baldia factory fire case until September 16 after its order to record testimonies of some key witnesses of the incident via video-link was challenged in the Sindh High Court (SHC).

Two-hundred-and-sixty people were killed and dozens injured as a fire ravaged the Ali Enterprises garments factory in Baldia Town on September 11, 2012. Seventeen of the dead bodies still await identification.

The ATC-VII was scheduled to hear the Ali Enterprises owners, Shahid Bhaila and Arshad Bhaila, through video conferencing from the Pakistani embassy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; however, the move was challenged by the defence side.

The Bhailas have been relieved from the case since a re-investigation found that the factory was set on fire after they – the owners – refused to pay extortion money to people belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

Ten suspects currently face the trial, including the then MQM’s industries and commerce minister Rauf Siddiqui, local office bearers of the party Abdul Rehman, alias Bhola and Zubair, alias Charya, factory employees Shahrukh, Fazal Ahmed, Arshad Mehmood and Ali Muhammad, and Hyderabad-based businesspersons Umar Hasan Qadri, Ali Hasan Qadri and Iqbal Adeeb Khanum.

Only Rehman and Zubair are in judicial custody in jail while the rest have secured bail. One key suspect, then in-charge of the MQM’s Karachi Tanzimi Committee Hammad Siddiqui, has been declared proclaimed offender in the case. The prosecution has maintained that he was the brains behind the extortion and arson act.

According to the special public prosecutor, Sajid Mehmoob Sheikh, the defence side had challenged in the SHC the approval by the ATC to hear Bhaila brothers through video-link. The matter is to be taken up by the high court on September 11.

The case is registered under sections 302 (premeditated murder), 324 (attempting to murder), 337 (shajjah), 384 (punishment for extortion), 385 (putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion), 386 (extortion by putting person in fear of death or of grievous hurt), 435 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to cause damage to amount of one hundred rupees), 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house), 34 (common intention), and 109 (abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with the Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act at the SITE-B police station.