KARACHI: A district and sessions court has granted interim pre-arrest bail to the owners of a Korangi factory, its building and a supervisor in a case pertaining to the death of 16 workers in a fire in the industrial unit last month.

The fire allegedly caused by an electric short-circuit engulfed the industrial unit, M/s BM Luggage, in Mehran Town on Aug 27 killing the 16 workers.

Police had booked factory owner Hassan Meetha alias Ali Meetha, building owner Faisal Tariq, its three supervisors — Syed Imran Ali Zaidi, Zafar and Rehan — and watchman Syed Zarin over their alleged involvement in the manslaughter case.

Court sources said the factory and building owners and supervisor Zaidi had obtained interim bail on Monday to avoid arrest by the police in the present case.

A court will take up confirmation or otherwise of their bail today

District and Sessions’ Judge (East) Khalid Hussain Shahani had granted them interim pre-arrest bail subject to furnishing a surety of Rs500,000 each.

They were directed to cooperate with the police during the investigation process. In the meanwhile, the court had issued a notice to the investigating officer to appear along with an investigation report.

The court is scheduled to take up the confirmation of the suspects’ interim pre-arrest bail or otherwise on Saturday (today), judicial staff and lawyers said.

Earlier, defence counsel Haseeb Jamali submitted that his client, Mr Tariq, was only the owner of the property that he had rented out to Mr Meetha over two years ago.

He submitted that Mr Meetha being the factory owner was running his own business on the subject premises and Mr Tariq had nothing to do with the fire incident.

He asked the court to grant the applicant pre-arrest bail since he apprehended his arrest by the police in the present case.

Appearing on behalf of factory owner Meetha, defence counsel Hasan Sabir submitted that his client used to run the factory in Dubai, with the same staff and in 2019 he relocated the factory to Karachi on the call of Prime Minister Imran Khan who had urged businessmen to bring their businesses to the country to boost economy.

The counsel further said that the applicant used to manufacture leather bags with the material provided by his foreign clients to whom the products (bags) were exported.

He said on the day of the incident the factory was being run on power generator because K-Electric had suspended electricity in the area for around 24 hours due to some repair works.

After KE restored supply the factory was switched from the generator and the fire might have been caused during that process, he said.

Advocate Sabir said that none of the factory exits were locked, except one door to the rooftop only for safety reasons. He said none of the workers was present there at the time of the incident.

He submitted that soon after the fire broke out an employee had approached two fire tenders stationed at the Brooks Chowrangi and requested firefighters to rush to the factory to put out the fire. But, the fire tenders were without water that caused a delay of around three hours in initiating the rescue work.

The counsel added that the fire had taken place before factory owner Meetha had arrived there, while other staffers, who had luckily survived the fire, were booked by the police in the present case with mala fide intentions.

Maintaining that his client was not responsible for the incident, the counsel asked the court to grant him interim pre-arrest bail to enable him to join the investigation since he apprehended his arrest by the police.

According to the FIR, the deaths took place on the upper portion of the building that allegedly lacked any emergency exit. “The factory building has been constructed in a manner that none can exit in case of emergency while no emergency alarm system was installed in it,” added the FIR.

A case was registered under Sections 322 (manslaughter) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2021