KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on a set of appeals filed against the judgement of the trial court handed down in the Baldia factory arson case.

A division bench, headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha, reserved its ruling after examining the record and proceedings of the case as well as concluding arguments from an additional prosecutor general and lawyers for the appellants.

Earlier, the SHC had asked both the parties to jointly file documents to enable the court to more expeditiously decide these appeals.

There were around 400 prosecution witnesses in the case and with the consent of both sides a list of around 50 material witnesses was placed before the SHC for examination.

Such witnesses were divided into categories, including those witnesses who linked the appellants with commissioning of offences, those present at the crime scene and those who identified dead bodies, etc.

The bench conducted lengthy proceedings on Monday and Tuesday, scrutinised the testimonies, other documentary evidence and heard both the sides before reserving the verdict for pronouncement.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Abdul Rehman aka Bhola and Zubair aka Chariya had been sentenced to death by an antiterrorism court in September 2020 for setting the multi-storey Ali Enterprises garment factory on fire in Baldia Town on Sept 11, 2012.

The trial court had also handed down life imprisonment to factory manager Shahrukh Latif and three watchmen — Fazal Ahmed, Arshad Mehmood and Mohammad Ali — for facilitating the deaths of 264 people.

The trial court had exonerated then provincial minister for commerce Rauf Siddiqui, Iqbal Adeel Khanum, Umar Hassan and Dr Abdul Sattar Khan for lack of evidence.

All the convicts through their lawyers approached SHC against their conviction, while on a court order the state had challenged the acquittal of the four men.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2023