Owners of burnt-out Pakistan factory granted bail

A Pakistani policeman stands guard outside the burnt-out garment factory in Karachi on Sept. 14, 2012. Asif Hassan/AFP

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

KARACHI, Pakistan — A Pakistani court granted bail to three owners of a garment factory in the southern city of Karachi where a fire this week killed 258 people, a defence lawyer said Friday, infuriating families of those who perished in the country’s worst industrial accident.

Pakistani police have opened a murder case and are investigating whether possible negligence by the owners and managers of the garment factory led to the massive loss of life in the Tuesday night fire.

The horrific way the factory workers died has infuriated many Pakistanis. People caught in the basement suffocated when it filled with smoke while those on the higher floors were forced to break through metal bars over the windows and jump for their lives to the ground below.

News that the men had been granted bail without even being arrested, a legal practice in Pakistan which allows people to avoid jail, outraged families still grieving their dead.

“The owners of the garment factory should be arrested and hanged as quickly as possible,” said Zaitoon Bibi, who lost her son in the fire. “I do not think I will get justice as these owners are powerful and rich.”

A lawyer for the men, Amir Mansoob Qureshi, said the judge instructed the police that the factory owners cannot be arrested for eight days under bail terms. The court also asked the owners to surrender their passports and ordered them not to leave the country, the lawyer said.

He said the men went to the city of Larkana, north of Karachi, to ask for bail because they feared for their safety in Karachi.

One of the factory owners, Arshad Bhaila, blamed the city’s firefighters for the deaths, saying in televised comments that they arrived late to extinguish the blaze.

In his first public comments since the disaster, Bhaila said they would look after all the families of the dead and injured.

The blaze was the deadliest industrial accident in Pakistan’s 65-year history, and highlighted the woeful safety conditions that exist at many factories around the country.

An officer at Karachi’s central fire station, Hasan Raza, said firefighters had been dispatched to the scene almost immediately. Within an hour the blaze had been designated as the highest priority, and 26 fire engines were on the scene, he said.

Survivors said they had only one way out of the building since the factory’s owner had locked all the other exit doors after a recent theft. Bhaila denied that they had locked the doors.

The fire started when a boiler exploded and the flames ignited chemicals that were stored in the factory, which manufactured jeans and other clothes for export.

In a separate development Friday, security officials briefly arrested the son of the recently ousted Pakistani prime minister for his alleged role in helping two pharmaceutical companies obtain huge amounts of ephedrine for drug trading, his lawyer said. He was taken into custody just before he was to appear at a hearing before the Supreme Court.

Officers from the anti-narcotics force, a military-backed law enforcement agency, arrested Ali Musa at the Supreme Court gates on Friday, said Musa’s lawyer, Khalid Ranjha. Musa is the son of former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Gilani’s son is accused of using his political influence in 2010 to get the ephedrine for two pharmaceutical companies. They are suspected of diverting it to people in the drug trade. Ephedrine can be used to make methamphetamines.

Musa has denied the charges.

The arrest warrant was issued in June, but Musa has been in hiding. He was supposed to appear in front of the court to see whether he could receive bail. But before he could get there, police threw him in a vehicle and sped away, the lawyer said.

The court then demanded he be released, which authorities did, and then he was granted bail.

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Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed contributed to this report from Islamabad.

09:56ET 14-09-12