LHC admits appeal in jail shootout case


Rana Tanveer August 04, 2010

SIALKOT: A Lahore High Court (LHC) division bench has admitted an appeal against the acquittal of 23 people accused of killing nine men in 2003 for regular hearing.

Inspector general of police (IGP) Balochistan Malik Mohammad Iqbal and other police officials are among the 23 accused of complicity in the deaths of four civil judges and five others in 2003 while the judges were visiting the Sialkot district jail. The bench issued bailable warrants for the acquitted persons to appear in court on August 17, 2010.

Apart from Iqbal, who was serving as DIG Gujranwala at the time, the accused include district police officer (DPO) Sialkot Amjad Javeed Saleemi, DPO Gujrat Raja Munawar Hussain, superintendent police (SP) Sialkot Sikandar Hayat, Allama Iqbal Memorial Hospital Sialkot surgeon Dr Sajid Hussain and other jail and elite force officials.

The judges who were killed in the encounter were Syed Shahr Yar Bokhari, Asif Mumtaz Ahmad Cheema, Sagheer Anwar and Shahid Munir Ranjha.

Nasim Akhtar (mother of Sagheer Anwar), Syed Ghulam Abbas (father of Syed Shahr Yar Bokhari), Mumtaz Ahmad Cheema (father of Asif Mumtaz Cheema) and Ghulam Qadir (father of Shahid Munir Ranjah) jointly moved an appeal against the acquittal of the accused and asked that the sentences of the two convicted men be increased.

Syed Ghulam Abbas, an advocate, was in tears after advancing arguments on the appeal.

He submitted that the trial court order was illegal as the occurrence was a planned act and the evidence fully implicated the accused.

“There is no justification for letting these men off, because their crime was a planned and targeted slaughter of innocent people,” he said.

A team of judicial officers headed by district and session judge Sialkot Chaudhry Zafar Hussain was on a visit of the district jail on July 31, 2003 when some prisoners opened fire on them and kidnapped the four judges.

The police returned fire, and the judges were killed in the ensuing shootout.

A case was lodged on the complaint of civil judge Abdul Rehman against the DPOs, jail staff and elite force employees who participated in the encounter.

The complainant also alleged that the event occurred with the collusion and conspiracy of jail authorities.

“There was no chance of such a ready supply of firearms inside the jail premises,” Abbas said.

An anti-terrorism court tried all the men charged in the case and on December 23, 2006 acquitted 23 of the men who had been implicated in the killings.

Only Raja Mushtaq Ahmad, who was assistant superintendent of the jail and warden Muhammad Hafeez were convicted and given prison terms.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 5th, 2010.

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