Owners of the ill-fated Ali Enterprises on Monday claimed that their employees were being harassed, adding that they wanted to resolve the case immediately but were not being allowed to visit the factory.
Appearing in front of a judicial tribunal at the Sindh Secretariat, owners Shahid Bhaila and Arshad Bhaila said that the factory as well as its records are in the custody of investigative agencies.
The owners were recording their statements in front of the tribunal headed by Justice (r) Zahid Qurban Alvi.
The owners said that they had no information about any chemical which allegedly caused the fire and added that eight of the factory workers are in police custody.
Earlier on Sept 13, police in Karachi registered a murder case against the owners of a garment factory.
At least 289 workers perished in the horrific fire that destroyed the garments factory, an unprecedented industrial tragedy that prompted calls for an overhaul of poor safety standards.
The attorney of the factory owners claimed that the police had the footage of 36 CCTV cameras, adding that the footage should be presented to the tribunal as evidence.
The owners said that the doors of the factory were not closed. They said that despite many calls to the fire department, the fire fighters reached the factory after an hour of the incident.
“The police, who reached the factory after 20 minutes of the fire, also tried calling the fire engines,” the brothers claimed.
The owners also claimed that during the fire-fighting and rescue operation by the fire department, the water in their reserves was finished and the rescue operation was halted for some time.
Shahid Bhaila said that he himself went to the SITE fire station, where he was told that there was no water in their reserves and it has been called from Sakhi Hassan station.
Replying to a question of Justice Alvi, Shahid Bhaila said that his factory’s human resource was outsourced to contractors so he was not aware if salaries were being given to the laborers on that day. The brothers told the tribunal that their factory had an international certificate which said that their factory abided all the international standards to operate.
