Karachi: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday ordered the government to submit a detailed report about the actions it took against police officials who besieged an anti-terrorism court (ATC) and attacked journalists last week.
Chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah, who was presiding over the court proceedings, adjourned the case to June 1, after he ordered the chief secretary of the Sindh province to call on the chief minister and collect all the information about the latter’s action against the police officials.
Earlier, inspector-general of Sindh, Gulam Haider Jamali, along with additional inspector-general and 12 other senior police officers, submitted affidavits to the court as well as unconditional apologies once again.
The court had rejected the apologies of the police in the previous hearing. The SHC had taken a suo moto action against the police for their beating up journalists outside the ATC when Zulfiqar Mirza, the former home minister appeared to seek bail from the court.
Once a confidant of former president Asif Ali Zardari, Mirza had developed serious differences with Zardari and was levelling different charges against him.
IG Jamali, in his affidavit and prayed the court to accept his apology and assured his unflinching obedience to the court of law. He also said that he respected the judges and the court and would continue to work to protect the honour and dignity of the courts of law.
The chief justice asked the advocate-general of the province as to why the chief minister had not taken any action against the police officials who were involved in the attack.
The public lawyer told the court that the chief minister did not take action as he realised that the court had already taken a suo moto action and thus it became a sub-judice matter.
The advocate further told the court that court that in the Zulfiqar Mirza private security guard case, there were two persons who belonged to lawless tribal areas of the country and they had lethal assault weapons.
The chief justice ask the government lawyer why the police did not inform the registrar of the court about the presence of the criminal elements in Mirza’s security entourage and if the police would have reacted in the same way had the incident occurred with the chief minister himself.
