Lahore High Court (LHC) Justice Manzoor Malik on Friday barred the Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) and others from harassing the owners of Kharak medicine company without legal sanction. He sought comments from police by February 17 on the insertion of murder section 302 in the FIR registered against them following the death of 23 workers in a boiler blast at the factory. The court was hearing a petition filed by accused Kharak owners Zafar Iqbal, Zaheer Iqbal and Zubair to challenge the section included against them.
The accused through their counsel advocate Khuram Latif Khosa, son of the Punjab Governor, argued that Sabzazar Police Station had unlawfully added sections 302/149, 324/ 427, 290/ 291 of PPC in the FIR to charge them with ‘murder’. The accused requested that the court suspend the murder section in the FIR.
They argued that while Additional District and Sessions Judge Chaudhry Nazeer Ahmad had granted them interim bail, police were still harassing them. They claimed police had unlawfully sealed their residential house, warehouse, compounded all vehicles, including family cars and seized the company’s machinery.
They claimed the blast had left them facing a two-way loss since both their factory was destroyed and workers had died and that they were ‘victims,’ not victimisers.
They pleaded that the court appoint an ‘honest’ police officer to investigate the case. After hearing the arguments, the judge directed the CCPO to stop harassing the factory owners and file a reply by February 17 on the FIR. The FIR claims the accused had been stopped from establishing their factory in residential area a number of times. It claims locals had expressed apprehensions before the incident took place. It claims labour laws were violated and established a factory in a residential area.
