The Karachi-bound flight, NL-122, was delayed for over five hours at the Benazir International Airport after passengers were handed boarding passes and asked to board the plane at 10 am. However, the engines abruptly stalled when the plane started to take-off.

Passengers were then asked to step off the aircraft and were told that a technical problem had been identified, a businessman from Haripur who was on board the aircraft said.

After a couple of hours, the passengers waiting in the departure lounge were told there was a leakage in the fuel tank and that it had been repaired.

Irked at the information, the passengers, including 12 children, protested in the departure lounge.

The flight finally took off at 3:30 pm.

Shaheen Airlines’ officials confirmed that the delay was due to a leakage in the fuel tank, adding that it was repaired and the flight left safely for its destination.

Troubled airline

The CAA had recently ordered safety inspections of all airplanes operated by private airlines following the Bhoja Air crash last month to determine whether they were safe to fly but Saturday’s leakage cast doubts over how well the job was done.

According to sources, the plane had undergone a full maintenance check, yet the leakage had not been discovered.

Last month, shortly after the Bhoja Air crash, the fuel tank of another Shaheen Air plane began leaking as the aircraft was about to take off from Lahore airport. The same day, emergency was declared in an aircraft of Shaheen Air when its tyre burst during landing in Karachi.

(with additional reporting by Qamar Zaman)

Published in The Express Tribune, May 20^th, 2012.

The robbers also manhandled Branch Operations Manager Shafqat and a security guard after they put up resistance, said the Civil Lines police.

Civil Lines Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Malik Tariq said a case had been registered against the unidentified robbers and three police teams — headed by the SHOs of Civil Lines, Airport and Morgah polices — have been formed to trace them.

He said the armed quartet entered the bank at 9:10am disguised as customers and held the staff hostage at gunpoint.

After the robbers collected Rs2.7 million and tried to run away, the manager and the security guard tried to stop them. The robbers hit both the manager and the guard with pistol butts and took away the guard’s gun, Tariq said. Both received medical treatment at a nearby hospital and are in stable condition, the DSP added.

DSP Tariq said that initial investigations revealed that the four robbers arrived on two Honda 125 motorcycles and fled towards Tench Bhatta after committing the robbery.

The robbery sent shockwaves across Dheri Bazaar and fear-stricken shopkeepers closed down their businesses early.

In early April, four unidentified robbed took Rs2 million from the nearby HBL Kamalabad branch on Dhamial Road,  just two kilometres from Dheri Hassanabad branch.

However, the loot from the earlier case was recovered within minutes after one of the robbers was arrested by the police in a congested area while he was in a getaway car with the money by his side.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 17^th, 2012.

RAWALPINDI: A suspended deputy superintendent of police (DSP), former Ratta Amral police station house officer (SHO) and a suspended sub inspector were arrested on Monday for delaying the registration of a rape case.

Former City Circle DSP Taimoor Khan, Ratta Amral SHO Jawad Abbas and SI Zaffar Iqbal were arrested by the Civil Lines police after a special anti-corruption judge denied them pre-arrest bail.

The city police had registered a criminal case against three for one-month delay in the registration of rape case. Moreover, they were also found guilty of forging official documents to cover up their crime, as was revealed by an investigation into the matter.

The FIR was registered on April 20 following a departmental inquiry on the directions of the Supreme Court in a suo moto case.

The complainant had attempted to have the Ratta Amral police register an FIR on March 21. He had nominated three men of raping his daughter. However, the police did not register the report until April 18, and even that was only after the SC took a suo motu notice of the case.

Police high ups removed then Rawal Town SP Malik Matloob Ahmed and suspended DSP Khan and two other police officers.

Meanwhile, Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench Justice Khawaja Imtiaz Ahmed issued notices to the Rawalpindi city police officer and SHO Ratta Amral after DSP Khan filed a petition seeking cancellation of the FIR registered against him.

The DSP challenged Police Order 2002, arguing that it was promulgated through a presidential ordinance and was never validated  by the parliament.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2012.

RAWALPINDI / ISLAMABAD: A capital court on Monday directed the intelligence agencies to produce an activist of a banned outfit while a Rawalpindi court in a related petition rejected a plea upholding a ban on the proscribed organisation.

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) directed top officials of Military Intelligence and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to produce Hizbut Tehrir’s (HuT) spokesperson Naveed Butt before the court on May 18.

In a related development the Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi bench upheld a ban on the proscribed organisation, dismissing a six-year-old petition filed by HuT spokesperson.

In IHC, Butt’s wife, Saadia Rahat, had filed a petition for her husband’s recovery, who went missing on May 5.

IHC Chief Justice Iqbal Hameedur Rehman issued notices to Director-Generals (DGs) of ISI and MI and the Lahore-based deputy directors of the two premier agencies police officers.

The Petitioners counsel Umer Hayat Sindhu contended that Butt’s detention was illegal. He said that his client was on his way to pick his children from school near Liaquatabad, Lahore, when intelligence agencies’ officials kidnapped him. He alleged Butt had received threatening calls from unknown callers.

He informed the court Butt’s wife also approached the concerned police station, but they did not register a case. “Butt’s family approached senior intelligence officials to enquire about him, but in vain.”

The counsel argued that Butt’s life was in danger and he may be handed over to a foreign agency. He contended that several persons associated with HuT had gone missing from across the country after intelligence agencies took them into illegal detention. He prayed the court to declare his detention unlawful.

Meanwhile, Justice Khawaja Imtiaz Ahmed and Justice Chaudhry Muhammad Younus of the LHC Rawalpindi bench set aside a petition challenging the ban on HuT which is working for the establishment of khilafat (caliphate) in the world. The division bench of the LHC, in a short order, set aside the claim that the federal government had unlawfully banned the organisation and sealed its offices.

Butt had challenged the notification banning the HuT issued by the interior ministry in November 2003. He maintained that the federal government did not mention any reason for proscribing HuT while it was bound by law to cite reasons for taking action against an organisation.

“No one can be condemned unheard but the Musharraf government banned HuT without calling the members for an explanation, Sindhu said talking to The Express Tribune.”  The organisation has never indulged in anti-state or terrorist activities.” The ban is against the fundamental rights of forming associations for a collective cause as enshrined in the constitution, the lawyer argued.

Butt had urged the court to declare the ban unlawful and stop the authorities from harassing members of HuT as well as de-sealing its offices.

A deputy attorney general (DAG) representing the federation argued before the court that the petition was not maintainable under the law as Butt could not challenge the notification. The DAG said there were cases registered against HuT activists and the ban was lawful.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2012.

Easy access to various acids and chemicals in the open market and the apparent absence of any regulation on its sale are among the many reasons contributing to increasing acid crimes.

On April 20, a trial court awarded death sentence to a man for throwing acid on a woman who died of acid burns. Her only ‘crime’ was refusing to marry him. Information obtained from the district prosecution branch revealed that the RA Bazaar police did not investigate where the acid was purchased from.

In another recent case, a woman named Yasmin lodged an FIR with the Pirwadhai police stating she was attacked with acid by former husband. The police are yet to capture the suspect.

As victims wait for justice, precious little is being done to make the availability of acid to every purchaser harder. Pirwadhai Police Station in-charge Malik Tahir Ahmed admitted that acids are openly available in the area.

But what might be of more cause for concern is that no one is willing to accept responsibility for overlooking acid sales.

Civil Defence District Officer Tayyamam Raza said his department is responsible only for ensuring safety measures taken at the sale points of different acids.

“The dealer is required to get an NOC from civil defence showing that he has taken the required safety measures to sell the acids. After getting the NOC, if a dealer violates the rules, he will first receive a warning and later the business could be sealed,” said Raza.

Rawalpindi Excise Director Sohail Arshad said his office only had the power to allow or cancel licences to sell spirits and oils. He categorically denied that his department had anything to do with the acid trade and said he was unsure of who had to provide oversight.

In Rawalpindi, acids can be easily bought from Hamilton Road, Ghazni Road, Bagh Sardaran, Bangash Colony, Pirwadhai, Dhoke Dalal, Kurri Road, Adamjee Road and Misrial Road.

Rawalpindi District Coordination Officer (DCO) Saqib Zaffar said he would “soon” order a detailed survey on the sale of acids in the city and assured that violators would be dealt with under the existing laws.

According to Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) around acid crimes are committed annually in the country, mostly in southern Punjab and northern Sindh. Of them 70% of acid crime victims are women.

The government recently passed the Acid Control and Acid Crime Prevention law and some individuals like Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Daniel Junge were honoured with an Academy Award for their documentary, “Saving Face”. However, awareness at grassroots level still has a long way to go.

“Easy availability of acids can encourage [acid crimes],” said Advocate Shehryar Lodhi, who works with acid survivors. He recommended severe punishments and putting the offences under anti-terror laws.

Elaborating on the laws regulating the sale of acids, Lodhi said every acid dealer has to get a licence from the district administration to deal in the commodity, but “over 90% of the trade in the city is being done illegally”.

A District Civil Defence Department official, asking not to be named, said laws to regulate the sale of acids in the open market do exist, but the authorities seem oblivious to them.

Traders themselves have managed to create obstacles in regulation too. A district government official told The Express Tribune that last summer, the Civil Defence started a campaign against unauthorised dealers but the Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce intervened to protect them.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2012.

While the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) succeeded in arresting the 57 people deported from Greece with the help of the Airport Security Force (ASF) and area police, the incident indicates that faulty measures and disregard for standard operating procedures (SOP) could lead to a bigger fiasco in future.

Immigration officials and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) staff revealed that FIA is often given no prior information about the arrival of deportees, even from Greece and Turkey, where over 10,000 people await deportation to Pakistan.

Besides the ‘surprise’ arrivals of special flights and the arrival of a few deportees on normal passenger flights, other problems include the non-implementation of SOPs by different airlines, a shortage of FIA staff to manage the deportees, absence of a detention centre and interview cabins at BBIA, and resources to relocate deportees to FIA offices closer to their permanent residences in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

An FIA official told The Express Tribune that there were agreements between Pakistan and various European Union (EU) member states to give prior information about the arrival of deportees. All countries relay this information except Greece and Turkey, he said.

The official feared that problems during the arrival of deportees would continue in future as thousands of Pakistanis await deportation from the UK, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Turkey.

The FIA official said that under the SOP signed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), CAA, FIA and ASF, no more than 15 deportees may land at BBIA on a single flight. On the other hand, planes full of deportees continue landing at the airport, where immigration staff have been finding it hard to manage the load.

“Once they land at BBIA, deportees sit in the open because immigration staff must prioritise regular passengers,” the official added. They stay there for hours on end, without any security staff around them.

The official added that the FIA has 135 sanction posts for immigration staff, 110 of which are female operators. The 24-hour operations of BBIA mean that only a fraction of the staff are available at any given time and the staff is not trained to carry out security work such as guarding deportees.

Another problem that the FIA staff is facing at BBIA is the departure of deportees to FIA offices in Peshawar, Gujranwala, Sargodha and Faisalabad, closer to their hometowns. The deported persons have to wait for hours as FIA officials come from the destination city to collect them, the official said.

FIA Immigration Deputy Director Uroojul Hassan was unreachable for an official comment despite repeated attempts.

CAA Spokesperson Mubarak Shah, however, said the existing airport facility has no room for further extension. The detention centre, therefore, will have to wait for now. Shah quickly added that the new international airport near Fatejang will have all such facilities.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2012.

The majority of those deported were young men from Islamabad and Gujranwala. They escaped from the arrival lounge after being held for five hours without any legal proceedings, according to officials of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and relatives of the deported.

An immigration official said the deportees reached the airport at 6am via a chartered plane from Athens. At around 11am, the detainees escaped after pushing two female constables guarding them out of the way. They were held in the lounge due to the absence of a detention room.

Following their escape, the FIA and Airport Security Force (ASF) closed the entry and exit gates of the airport to hunt down the escaped men. Law enforcement succeeded in re-arresting 49, while eight others escaped from airport boundaries, the official said.

Speaking to the media, Deputy Director FIA Immigration, Urooj ul Hassan said they did not have armed staff to guard the large number of deportees coming from Greece.

“We have time and again asked the ASF to allow armed FIA officials at the airport for this purpose but the airport guards have not allowed us to.

“We had told the ASF to provide security for holding the deportees at BBIA before shifting them to the FIA lockup,” said Hassan.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11^th, 2012.

The arrested official of the federal health ministry is accused of playing a vital role as drug controller in converting the huge quota of the chemical for domestic consumption as initially the quota was issued for export to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Investigation team member Col Tauqeer Ahmed confirmed to The Express Tribune that the force had arrested the drug controller. He said Ahmed was to be interrogated about how and under what law he and other health ministry officials converted the export quota for domestic consumption.

The ANF has already arrested three persons – former deputy drug controller Abdul Sattar Sehwani, Chief Executive Danas Pharmaceutical Islamabad, Ansar Farooq Chaudhry, and Chief Executive Berlex Lab International Multan, Iftikhar Khan Babar.

Former director general health Dr Rasheed Jumma, director Berlex Rizwan Khan and director Danas Col (retd) Tahirul Wadood Lahoti are yet to be arrested after a trial court rejected their pre-arrest bail.

In their interim investigation report submitted to the trial court in Rawalpindi, the investigators had cited chief executive CAN pharmaceutical company Muhammad Hashim Khan Tareen, Tanveer Hussain Sherazi, Chaudhry Abdul Waheed and Ahsanur Rehman, all residents of Multan, as absconders.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s son Ali Musa Gilani, who was also quizzed by the investigators April 26, denied all charges against him. He denied that he had influenced health officials to convert the ephedrine quota for domestic consumption.

According to the charges, the two companies first obtained quota to export the chemical to Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010 but later consumed it in local market in violation of rules and regulations.

ANF has maintained that the companies had submitted details and record of ephedrine consumption but investigations had revealed that all the record was fake and could not be verified.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11^th, 2012.

Former Rawalpindi City DSP Taimur Khan has requested the court to cancel the FIR registered against him under the police order and stop the police from initiatiating action against him.

Khan along with former SHO Ratta Amral Jawad Abbas and former Sub Inspector Muhammad Tufail is accused of misuse of authority and delaying the registeration of a rape case by almost one month.

Khan and Abbas obtained bail before arrest from the court of an additional district and sessions judge on Tuesday while SI Tufail was denied pre-arrest bail.

The police officers were booked after a departmental inquiry ordered by the Supreme Court in a suo motu case found them guilty of negligence. The LHC’s Rawalpindi bench is likely to take up the petion next week.

On March 21, Muhammad Aslam complained to Ratta Amral police that three men raped his daughter. The police however registered the FIR on April 18 after the SC took a suo motu notice of the delay. The apex court also ordered an inquiry into the incident which was then launched by City Police Officer Rawalpindi Azhar Hameed Khokhar. After the report was finalsied, the CPO removed SP Rawal Malik Matloob Ahmed and suspended DSP Khan and two other police officers.

In his petition, the former DSP has maintained that the Police Order 2002 was never ratified by parliament after it was promulgated by the military dictator Pervez Musharraf.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 10^th, 2012.

After getting legal custody of the plane’s remains, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) unloaded them near a runway.

Discussions with serving and retired CAA officials revealed that certain rules of the authority, derived from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), are being violated.

An official on the condition of anonymity said the wreckage is needed for investigations and a detailed forensic report of the debris is required. If the remains are left in the open, certain parts could get further damaged, leading to problems in conducting a thorough probe. However, he added that he was unsure whether or not the investigators had already sent the necessary parts to forensic experts.

Moeedur Rehman, an expert on aviation law, said the wreckage is to be preserved for future studies and kept indoors after being remodelled into a skeleton aircraft. The debris is necessary to study the causes of air accidents, he said.

Syed Muhammad Anwar, a former CAA director and former legal advisor to the ICAO, said that under the rules of the authority, it is the CAA’s duty to collect and safeguard the wreckage.

CAA Spokesperson Pervaiz George explained that the authority had not done anything with the remains because the investigators are still in command. He said as long as the investigation is underway, the CAA cannot not take the debris into custody.

Problems in getting back belongings

Meanwhile, the heirs of the deceased passengers are unable to get back the luggage and personal belongings in the custody of the Koral police.

A CAA official said that the Islamabad police had written a letter to the authority asking it to take custody of the luggage for distribution.

The CAA, however, refused to collect the belongings. In a letter addressed to the Islamabad police chief, the CAA said that only the police could give away the belongings following court orders as the valuables are already in the custody of the Koral police.

Superintendent of Islamabad Police (Rural) Faisal Bashir Memon confirmed that they had written to the CAA. He added that the authority had refused to collect the belongings and now a court would decide who should distribute the passengers’ belongings.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 9^th, 2012.