KARACHI: Police finally came up with a supplementary charge sheet carrying relevant sections of the anti-terrorism law before a judicial magistrate on Tuesday in the Baldia fire-wrecked garment factory case.

The report, which was submitted after a lengthy reinvestigation of the case, said that only two men had been charge-sheeted in the case and around a dozen others were left out for lack of evidence while the owners of the industrial unit were listed among the prosecution witnesses.

Over 250 workers were burnt alive in a devastating fire that engulfed a multi-storey garment factory building in Baldia Town in September 2012.

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.

In March, the police through a progress report informed the court that the factory fire was a planned terrorist activity and the JIT had recommended that a new case was registered under the anti-terrorism law and proposed former chief of the MQM Karachi Tanzeemi committee Hammad Siddiqui, his alleged frontman and then Baldia Town sector incharge Abdul Rehman, alias Bhola, Hyderabad-based businessmen brothers Ali Hasan Qardi and Umer Hasan Qadri, Dr Abdul Sattar, Zubair alias Charya and others as accused in it.

However, according to the supplementary report, the police only charge-sheeted Hammad, Abdul Rehman and three to four unidentified suspects and shown them absconders, adding that they had not found any incriminating evidence against rest of the proposed accused in order to charge-sheet them.

Referring to the JIT report, the supplementary charge sheet said that Hammad through Abdul Rehman had approached the factory owners to demand protection money of Rs250 million and partnership, but the owners only offered Rs10 million to which the alleged extortionists did not agree and they allegedly set the factory on fire “in order to teach the owners a lesson”.

Interestingly, the supplementary charge sheet was filed before a judicial magistrate (west) regardless of the fact that it also contained Sections 6 and 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 and to be tried by an antiterrorism court.

However, special public prosecutor Sajid Mehboob said that they wanted to follow a procedure in which the magistrate would send the charge sheet to the relevant sessions court, where the case was already pending and then it would be referred to the relevant forum/trial court.

Police incorporated Sections 302 (premeditated murder), 324 (attempted murder), 337 (shajjah), 384 (punishment for extortion), 385 (putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion), 386 (extortion by putting a person in fear of death or grievous hurt), 435 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to cause damage etc), 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house etc), 109 (abetment) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Sections 6 and 7 of the ATA in the supplementary charge sheet and a list of 58 prosecution witnesses was also attached with it.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2016