Aaj English TV

Monday, December 23, 2024  
20 Jumada Al-Akhirah 1446  

FIA team to fly to Bangkok for Bhola's arrest

Photo courtesy: Bangkok Post Photo courtesy: Bangkok Post

Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) team will fly to Bangkok for Abdul Rehman aka Bhola's arrest who was caught on Saturday in Thailand by Interpol and Thai police. Bhola is a prime suspect in Baldia Factory tragedy.

According to police, Abdul Rehman Bhola is a prime suspect in Baldia Town factory tragedy and allegedly one of the three key men behind the tragedy that culminated into deaths of 257 people.

Former Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) operational officials Hammad Siddique, Zubair Chariya and Abdul Rehman Bhola are accused of setting the factory on fire for not paying Rs 200 million in extortion.

AFP adds: Abdul Rehman, 46, was detained at a hotel in the red light district Nana area of the capital on Friday evening, said Thailand's Interpol chief. "Thai Interpol tracked this suspect following an arrest warrant sought by the Pakistani authorities," Major General Apichart Suriboonya told AFP.

"He will be repatriated as soon as Pakistan is ready," he added. Apichart said Rehman was suspected of being part of a criminal gang that was extorting the owners of a Karachi garment factory.

The gang burned down the factory when the owners refused to pay seven million baht ($200,000), he said. The fire at the Ali Enterprises factory in September 2012 was one of Pakistan's worst industrial disasters.

A judicial probe into the blaze was damning, pointing to a lack of emergency exits, poor safety training for workers, the packing in of machinery and the failure of government inspectors to spot any of these faults. Initially the fire was believed to be an accident.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2016