Karachi: Federal law minister Farooq Naek on Saturday said that law and order was a provincial subject and the federal government was not responsible for it unless the provincial authorities called for federal assistance.

Naek was replying to media questions in the backdrop of the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s remarks on Friday in which the apex court observed that the federal government was not serious in performing its role with regard to the worsening law and order situation in Karachi.

The court’s comments came during the hearing of the Karachi Law and Order case which was put off until February 25.

“After the 18th amendment, law and order is a provincial subject and the federal government would only come for assistance when a provincial government seeks the federal government’s help as we are doing in Balochistan,” Naek said.

In Balochistan province the federal government has deployed frontier corps in different parts of the province suffering from insurgency of Baloch nationalists and separatists besides sectarian groups.

Some political parties had called for deployment of the army in Karachi to carry out an operation against the outlaws who executed more than 2,300 people in Karachi in 2012.

Sectarian, ethnic and political targets were being shot in the city besides police, doctors and lawyers.

The city remained shut on Friday on a strike call of Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI) who protested against the murder of three of their clerics.

The blurred images of the shooters were caught on a close circuit television camera which the police were trying to scan. The police sources on Saturday said that the film was being dispatched to London for examination so that the men shown in the footage could be identified.

The lawyers also boycotted on Saturday all the proceedings of district courts in Karachi to protest the killing of a senior colleague who was gunned down recently. The under-trial prisoners were not brought to the courts and all the hearings were put on hold.

Meanwhile, two other men were gunned down in Karachi on Saturday.