Bangkok police from the Crime Suppression Division (CSD), Saturday (today), arrested Abdul Rehman, alias Bhola, 46, for starting a devastating fire in Karachi’s Baldia garment factory four years ago that killed 255 people, Thai.daily the Bangkok Post reported.
Abdul Rehman, 46, was detained at a hotel in the red light district Nana area of the capital on Friday evening, said Thailand’s Interpol chief.
“Thai Interpol tracked this suspect following an arrest warrant sought by the Pakistani authorities,” Major General Apichart Suriboonya told. “He will be repatriated as soon as Pakistan is ready,” he added.
Apichart said Rehman was suspected of being part of a criminal gang that was extorting the owners of a Karachi garment factory.
The gang burned down the factory when the owners refused to pay seven million baht ($200,000), he said. The fire at the Ali Enterprises factory in September 2012 was one of Pakistan’s worst industrial disasters.
Police had filed the supplementary charge sheet in August under the anti-terrorism law following a lengthy reinvestigation of the case.
According to the supplementary report, former chief of the MQM Karachi Tanzeemi Committee Hammad Siddiqui, his alleged front man and then Baldia Town sector in-charge Abdul Rehman, alias Bhola, and three to four unknown men were named as absconders in the case while around a dozen others were left out for lack of evidence and the owners of the ill-fated industrial unit were listed among the prosecution witnesses.
Last month, the anti-terrorism court (ATC) had severely reprimanded the concerned authorities for failing to arrest suspended chief of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Karachi Tanzeemi Committee, Hammad Siddiqui, and sector in-charge Baldia Town Abdul Rehman Bhola, the two main suspects in the case.
Pakistan police later found the suspect travelled to Thailand two weeks ago so they coordinated with Interpol and Thai police to track him down.
In September 2012, over 250 factory workers perished in the chemical factory fire. The incident was brushed off as having occurred owing to a short circuit but was later declared a case of arson; the factory was set ablaze owing to non-payment of protection money.
Initially, the police had charge-sheeted the owners and some employees of the factory in the tragic incident. However, the reinvestigation of the case was ordered in March last year through a joint investigation team after a JIT report submitted in the Sindh High Court in February 2015 revealed that the factory was set on fire after its owners failed to pay protection money.
The JIT had named Hammad, Abdul Rehman, Zubair, Ali Hasan, Umar Hasan, Abdul Sattar, Iqbal Adeeb Khanum and four unidentified persons as proposed accused in the report. However, police contended that incriminating evidence was available only against the two proposed accused.
Read more: German company agrees to compensate victims of Baldia factory fire incident
