Karachi: A district court on Saturday expressed dissatisfaction over the investigators’ report with regard to the Baldia Town factory inferno in which 259 workers lost their lives in 2012 and a legal case has dragged on ever since.

An investigator told the court that a revised report of the joint investigation team (JIT) was furnished and submitted to the provincial home department for formal approval.

However, the investigator’s explanations failed to satisfy the court, especially when it came to the failure of the factory owners to make appearances in court. The court asked the investigator to come up with a solid reason for exempting the factory owners from appearing in court.

The prosecution submitted to the court the owners’ correspondence — including letters and emails — in which they argued that they could not come to court because of security concerns.

District judge Maqbool Ahmad Memon, however, observed that there was no mention of the security concerns from the owners of the factory in the emails and letters.

The court also issued arrest warrants of Mansour, a suspect in the factory fire case, who was on bail and did not come to the court in past several hearings.

In one of Pakistan’s worst industrial accidents, Ali Enterprise, a garment factory in Baldia Town, caught fire in September, 2012. The factory had no fire escape, resulting in the death of 259 factory workers.

The owners of the factory, known as Bhaila brothers, escaped from the country soon afer the accident. A case was subsequently registered against them.

However, three years after the tragedy, investigators came up with some clues in the case suggesting that the fire was not an accident but that the factory had been set ablaze by extortionists and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) might be behind the incident.

A JIT was constituted and it travelled abroad several times to record the statements of the Bhaila brothers. In their statements, the factory owners claimed that the extortionists threatened them that they would set fire to the factory if they were not paid the money they had demanded.

The factory blaze entailed a big compensation payout for the owners and their European client. The new twist in the case, some believe, would damage the workers’ case.

However, the German legal advisers, who are helping the families of the victims, claimed that the extortion case would not affect the families’ right of compensation.