Two men were sentenced to death in Pakistan on Tuesday for starting a deadly factory fire in 2012. The fire killed more than 260 employees.
The court finds it proven that the pair started the fire because the extorted owners of the clothing factory had not paid any money. It became the deadliest industrial fire ever in Pakistan.
The fire raged at a multi-storey factory in the southern city of Karachi in September 2012. At the time of the fire, many hundreds of people were working in the building. A number of victims were burned alive.
The employees tried to get to safety after the outbreak of the fire, but this was made more difficult because emergency exits were closed. Some people therefore jumped out of the windows. Metal grilles were placed at some of the windows.
After the fire, there was a lot of criticism for, among other things, the lack of safety measures in the factory. The owners would have been more concerned about securing the garments than the safety of the personnel, survivors said.
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