KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday admitted for hearing separate appeals of five convicts, challenging their sentences in the Baldia factory fire case.
An accountability court in Karachi last month sentenced two former MQM activists — Abdul Rehman alias Bhola, a former sector in-charge of the party’s organisational structure, and Zubair alias Chariya — to death for arson, eight years after the country’s worst industrial fire killed some 264 people and injured 60 others at a garment factory in the prtropolis.
Last week, the two had moved the high court through their counsels against the sentence, contending the judgement was passed without observing the principles laid down by the Supreme Court.
A two-judge bench of the SHC issued a notice to the prosecutor general and sought the complete record of the case from the ATC that handed down the verdict.
The factory’s four gatekeepers — Shahrukh, Fazal Ahmed, Arshad Mehmood and Ali Mohammad — also sought relief. The appellants maintained that the court ignored key evidence while deciding the case.
Abdul and Zubair blamed the factory owners for the fire, saying the factory doors were closed when the fire broke out.
The verdict was announced after years of hearings and testimony from at least 400 witnesses. The slow pace of the trial frustrated victims’ families, who accused the police of failing to properly investigate and charge the real culprits.
