Karachi: The bodies of 17 of the victims who died in a factory fire in Pakistan’s worst industrial disaster last year have been finally buried after nearly five months, a government official said on Sunday.
"Those buried today in Baldia graveyard were victims whose bodies were not claimed by anyone and we had orders from the Sindh high court to bury those bodies," said Ali Leghari, the Deputy Commissioner of District (west), where the fire had occurred.
The factory fire in the city’s Baldia area killed 259 workers on September 11 last year and affected families claim that some loved ones were still missing.
"These 17 bodies had been lying at the Edhi Trust morgue for the last five months and we hoped they would be identified. However, no one claimed them,” Leghari said.
"We had even tried to identify them through DNA testing. If later any of them are identified through matching DNA test results we can have the bodies exhumed and handed over to relatives (of the deceased)," he added.
The two owners of the factory, Shahid and Arshad Bhaila, along with its senior managers were recently granted bail by the Sindh high court after police dropped murder charges against them.
The owners have said they were providing full compensation to the families of the victims of the fire which has been blamed on poor safety measures.
Most of the people in the garments factory fire died due to suffocation or burns.
PTI
