Daily Times

An anti-terrorism court on Tuesday sentenced two MQM workers to death, awarded life imprisonment to four while acquitted four others in the Baldia Town factory fire case.

The prime accused identified by their first names, Zubair and Abdul Rehman, were found guilty of setting fire to the building because the owners did not give them the extortion money. Zubair was arrested by the Interpol from Saudi Arabia and Abdul Rehman from Thailand in 2016 and extradited to Pakistan.

Four senior members of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the party which was widely blamed for the attack, including MQM leader and former state minister Rauf Siddiqui, Dr Sattar, Ali Hassan Qadri, and Areeb Khanum were acquitted due to lack of evidence.

As many as 400 witnesses recorded statements in 170 hearings while the verdict has been announced after eight years of the shocking incident in Baldia Town. Over 260 people, mostly workers, were burned alive when the multi-storey garment factory (Ali Enterprise) in Karachi, was set on fire.

The court also sentenced factory’s four guards to life imprisonment for facilitating the arson and locking the gates, preventing workers from escaping the blaze.

MQM KTC Incharge Hammad Siddiqui, on whose orders the factory was set to fire, and Ali Hassan Qadri, remain absconding in the case.

The convicts can appeal the verdict in high court within next 10 days.

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 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. 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.