KARACHI: Six years after the deadly Baldia factory fire, there is still no clue regarding the whereabouts of five factory workers, including a deaf and mute youth, who went missing on the ill-fated day, legal heirs of the victims informed an antiterrorism court.

Over 250 workers were killed on the locked premises of the Ali Enterprises when a huge fire mysteriously broke out and engulfed the entire industrial unit on Sept 11, 2012.

As the matter came up for hearing before the ATC-VI judge, 13 prosecution witnesses, including the legal heirs of the victims, six injured victims and a fireman, appeared to record their testimonies on Wednesday.

The prosecution claimed that the suspects acted on instructions of the then head of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement Karachi Tanzeemi Committee, Hammad Siddiqui, after the factory owners did not pay protection money.

A red warrant has already been issued for arrest of Hammad Siddiqui.

Five missing victims’ legal heirs testified that their relatives, who worked at the factory, had gone to work as usual but have not been seen or heard from again.

Sughra Bibi deposed that her son, Mohammad Hanif, who was aged around 20, went to the factory on the day of the incident.

Hanif, who was deaf and mute, was the only child of his parents and the sole breadwinner for his family since his father was sick and bed-ridden, the mother testified.

The mother said that they had not received the body of their son, who was a bachelor, till date despite samples given by the parents for DNA matching. They failed to match with the body of any of the unidentifiable victims.

Second witness Nazia Parveen testified that her husband Riaz Ahmed, believed to be in his 40s and father of four, spoke to her on mobile phone and told her that a fire had broken out on the second floor, where he was working in the stitching department.

Then he hung up, she said, adding that when she tried to call him back he did not pick up and later the phone went off. The witness said his body had not yet been found or identified.

The third witness, Shahid Perveen, testified that her husband Mohammad Akmal also worked in the same factory and went to work on the fateful day, but ever since all efforts to find any clue to his body had proved futile. His body was never identified or found, she added.

The fourth witness, Tabbasum Gohar, said that his brother Mohammad Tufail had gone to Ali Enterprises, was missing since the incident took place at his workplace, and the DNA matching tests and other verifications to find out body had borne no results till date.

The fifth witness, Ghulam Saqlain, deposed that his brother Ghulam Hasnain’s body had not yet been found since the fire incident in the factory.

Six other witnesses, who worked at Ali Enterprises, deposed that the fire had erupted all of a sudden in the basement and on the second floor, adding that most of the casualties had taken place on these two floors.

They further deposed that amid chaos they succeeded in jumping off the second floor from windows.

An official witness, Nasir-ud-Din, deposed that he was posted at the SITE fire station as fireman when he received the information about the fire and reached the site at around 6.39pm.

Later, other fire engines also arrived and started efforts to put out the fire, he added. The witness said his shift ended at 8.30pm, thus he left the place of the incident.

After recording statements of all the witnesses, the judge summoned around 69 remaining witnesses to record their statements on the next date.

The judge, who is conducting trial in the judicial complex inside the central prison, fixed the matter for Jan 19.

Nine accused — including Muttahida Qaumi Movement lawmaker Rauf Siddiqui; Abdul Rehman, alias Bhola; and Zubair, alias Chariya — have been charged with setting ablaze the garment factory with the help of its four gatekeepers — Shahrukh, Fazal Ahmed, Arshad Mehmood and Ali Mohammad.

The prosecution had listed around 670 witnesses in the case, but later gave up around 300 of them.

According to the special public prosecutor, some 332 witnesses have been examined by the court so far while 100 remaining are yet to be examined.

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2019