Karachi: The Sindh High Court has directed to conduct hearings on the appeals of the accused against the sentence in the Baldia Town Factory tragedy case on a daily basis.
A two-member bench headed by Justice KK Agha heard the appeals filed by the Global Foundation against the punishment of the accused in the Baldia Town Factory tragedy.
Other accused including former provincial minister Abdul Rauf Siddiqui appeared in the court. The prosecution presented a list of 49 main witnesses out of more than 400 witnesses in the court.
The court remarked that appeals against the sentence in the Baldia factory case would be heard on a daily basis. On which the lawyers also agreed.
Lawyer Safai Sarmad Khan Advocate started reading the statements and cross-examination of the witnesses and said that the statements of 6 eyewitnesses including sub-inspector Rab Nawaz, factory employees, who registered the FIR, were completed.
The witnesses include factory employees Muhammad Wasim, Kashif, Abdul Raees, Saleem Khan and Tahir Ali. According to the statement of Sub-Inspector Rab Nawaz, the area was on patrol when the fire broke out in the factory. After the fire broke out, he reached the police station and ascertained the situation, contacted the higher authorities to take measures to extinguish the fire.
According to the statements of the witnesses, Zubair Chariya was outside the factory on the day of the tragedy, the factory did not have the necessary arrangements to fight the fire.
Monitoring agencies including SBCA, SITE, Fire Brigade, Environmental Agency never paid attention. The fire brigade arrived late, adding to the damage.
The Anti-Terrorism Court had awarded the death sentence to the two accused, Rehman Bhola and Zubair Charia. The other four accused were sentenced to life imprisonment. The court acquitted 4 accused including Rauf Siddiqui due to lack of evidence.
(function(d, s, id){
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;}
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3&appId=770767426360150”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_GB/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.7”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));