The joint investigation team (JIT) formed to probe the BaldiaTown factory inferno case has been granted permission to travel to London to carry out further investigations in the case.
According to details, JIT members Sultan Khwaja, Munir Sheikh and Pir Mohammad Shah will travel to London to record statements from the factory owners with regards to the investigations in BaldiaTown factory inferno case.
Earlier this year, the case took a dramatic turn when a report by Rangers claimed that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement was behind the deadly fire which claimed the lives of at least 280 factory workers.
The report prepared by the joint investigation team was submitted to the Sindh High Court by an additional attorney general along with a statement of the deputy assistant judge advocate general of Rangers, Major Ashfaque Ahmed.
The statement said that the information had been disclosed by suspect Mohammad Rizwan Qureshi, an alleged worker of the MQM, on June 22, 2013, during joint investigation of the factory inferno.
According to the JIT report, the MQM worker revealed that a “well-known party high official” had demanded Rs 200 million as Bhatta (extortion money) through his front man from Ali Enterprises, the owners of the ill-fated factory, in August 2012.
Owner of the burnt industrial unit, Abdul Aziz Bhaila, and his sons Arshad Bhaila and Shahid Bhaila, general manager Mansoor and some gatekeepers have been booked in the case while on the directive of a magistrate then managing director of SITE Abdul Rasheed Solangi, director of the labour department Zahid Gulzar Shaikh, additional controller of civil defence Ghulam Akbar and chief inspector (electrical) Amjad Ali were also named in the case for their alleged negligence.
More than 500 people, including 50 women, who were working in the evening shift of a garment factory, named Ali Enterprises, were trapped inside the building situated in Karachi’s Baldia Twon when a fire erupted in September 2012.
At least 280 people had lost their lives in the blaze.