KARACHI: A sessions court on Monday granted interim pre-arrest bail to five persons, including an 11-year-old boy, his father and three union officials in the Gul Plaza fire case.

Meanwhile, the defence counsel also filed an application before the judicial magistrate seeking a re-investigation of the incident through an “investigation committee” and requesting the court to take cognisance of the alleged negligence of the regulatory, rescue and firefighting authorities.

In the charge sheet filed by the police before a court on Saturday, six persons had been named as accused persons: 11-year-old Huzaifa; his father, Naimatullah, who owned an artificial flower shop; and Gul Plaza Traders Association President Tanveer Pasta along with its members Ammar Ismail, Muhammad Ramzan, and Muhammad Ameen.

On Monday, the three union officials — Pasta, Ismail and Ramzan — along with the owner of the shop and his son moved the court through their counsel, Advocate Shaikh Jawaid Mir, seeking pre-arrest bail in the case.

Defence seeks re-investigation through JIT, alleging police shielded ‘real culprits’ while ignoring lapses by regulatory authorities

After a preliminary hearing, Additional District and Sessions Judge (South) Muhammad Aslam Shaikh granted interim bail to the three union officials and the shop owner against surety bonds of Rs500,000 each.

The court also granted bail to the 11-year-old boy against a surety of Rs10,000 along with a PR bond.

It also issued notices to the prosecution and the police and directed them to appear in person along with the case file at the next hearing on July 14.

“The contention required consideration and at this stage without touching the merits of the case, the applicants/accused persons are admitted to pre-arrest interim bail,” the court order stated.

The judge ordered the suspects to “cooperate with [the] investigation agency” and appear before the court at the next hearing for confirmation and otherwise on bail plea.

During the arguments, Advocate Mir alleged that the police had presented a distorted sequence of events. He argued that the union president, Pasta, had been the first to call the SHO of Nabi Bux police station on his mobile phone to report the incident, but the police had deliberately concealed this fact with “ulterior motives and mala fide intentions”.

He further contended that the SHO had falsely claimed that fire tenders were already engaged in firefighting when he reached the scene. However, according to the defence counsel, the first fire tender arrived at around 10:50pm and ran out of water within 20 minutes.

He added that two more fire tenders reached the spot 25 to 30 minutes later, but they too exhausted their water supply. It was only after the union officials of Gul Plaza and shopkeepers arranged four water tankers that the firefighting operations resumed, the counsel maintained.

“This was the time when precious lives on the mezzanine floor could have been saved, but the fire department, civil administration and civic agencies were neither properly equipped nor adequately trained to deal with the situation,” the counsel submitted.

The defence counsel alleged that the loss of 72 lives resulted from the “mismanagement and criminal negligence” of the district administration, the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA), Civil Defence, the fire department and Rescue 1122.

Advocate Mir further argued that the allegations against the shop owner and his son were baseless. He submitted that the shop was not being operated by Huzaifa, as alleged by the prosecution. According to him, the shop was run by Naimatullah, while another shop, No. 287, was managed by Naimatullah’s other elder son, Kamran, 24 or 25. He added that Huzaifa was merely present at the shop because it was Saturday, when he was off from school, and he had accompanied his father, which was common practice in the business community.

The counsel alleged that the investigation officer (IO) had deliberately concealed the fact that Kamran was present at Gul Plaza in Naimatullah’s absence and wrongly suggested that Huzaifa had been left unsupervised at the shop. He further argued that the prosecution had falsely implicated the union officials of Gul Plaza in an attempt to shield the “real culprits”.

The defence also contended that Huzaifa, being an 11-year-old minor, should have been sent to a juvenile court. However, the IO had acted irresponsibly throughout the probe and included the minor in the main charge sheet.

Advocate Mir further informed the court that one of the suspects nominated in the charge sheet, Muhammad Ameen, had permanently shifted to the United States six months before the incident and was not even present in Pakistan on the day when the fire erupted.

Defence seeks reinvestigation

After securing interim pre-arrest bail from the sessions court, defence counsel Advocate Mir filed an application before the judicial magistrate (South) under Section 190 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), seeking a re-investigation of the Gul Plaza fire through a joint investigation team (JIT) and requesting the court to take cognisance of the alleged negligence of the regulatory, rescue and firefighting authorities.

In the application, the defence urged the court to take judicial notice of the conduct of the IO, alleging that he had deliberately attempted to shield the “actual culprits” and, through the charge sheet, shifted the blame onto innocent persons by distorting the facts.

The counsel requested the court to take cognisance of the role of the deputy commissioner (South), the chief fire officer and his team, Rescue 1122, Civil Defence and other relevant officials.

Advocate Mir further requested the court to refer the matter for a fair and impartial re-investigation, free from the influence of the local police, by constituting an investigation committee headed by a senior police officer and comprising members of intelligence agencies.

The application also sought an inquiry to determine the role of and fix responsibility on the officials for their alleged criminal negligence, inefficiency, carelessness and apathy in failing to make adequate efforts to rescue those trapped on the mezzanine floor of Gul Plaza during the fire.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2026