Model Town musings: Murmurings abound after inquiry held in private

The audience was in courtroom when they were told proceedings had been put off .

LAHORE:

Justice Ali Baqar Najfi’s decision to hold Friday’s proceedings on the Model Town killings in his chambers led to a lot of resentment among the packed audience in Court Room Two.

The Judicial Tribunal comprising Justice Najfi has so far been holding inquiry proceedings in an open court at 2pm.

On Friday, Court Room Two was filled to its seating capacity by 2pm. At around 10 minutes past 2pm, the tribunal registrar called the medical superintendent of Jinnah Hospital to the Justice Najfi’s chamber. Around seven minutes later, Additional IG Altaf Hussain was called to the chamber as well.

Soon after that, the registrar announced that the proceedings had been adjourned till July 9. This led to much uproar from the audience that consisted of lawyers, members of the civil society and journalists.

Abdullah Malik, a member of the civil society, who has been attending the tribunal’s inquiry session from the first day, told The Express Tribune that the judge should have come to the courtroom and issued the order. He said the tribunal’s decision to hold proceedings in private was shocking. He said it raised serious doubts on the efficacy and transparency of the inquiry. “Already the victims have expressed reservations on the efficacy of the tribunal. That should have been indication enough for the tribunal to conduct proceedings in a thorough and transparent fashion. It would have brought some credibility to it.”

Malik said he had appeared in court for the proceedings after the tribunal posted an advertisement for it in a newspaper. He said he had assisted the tribunal on request, “but if Justice Najfi continues to huddle with members of the establishment, I will seriously consider boycotting the proceedings altogether”. He said he had brought several valuable points to assist the tribunal on Friday but that would be in vain.

Advocate Rana Ijaz told The Express Tribune that the audience had not taken kindly to the tribunal’s decision. He said the judge should have come to the courtroom even if it was only to adjourn the proceedings. He said adjourning the proceedings for five days meant that the tribunal wanted to delay the matter and eventually sweep it under the carpet.

A journalist requesting anonymity said there were already two judicial inquiries pending before two judges of the Lahore High Court and no reports had been released on them so far.

He said in May 2013, Justice Ali Akbar Naqvi was appointed a judicial tribunal to hold an inquiry into the murder of Sarabjit Singh, a convicted spy. Justice Mamoon Rasheed Sheikh was appointed a judicial tribunal in December 2013 to investigate a sectarian clash in Rawalpindi. The tribunals are yet to issue a report on any of these inquiries. “Now a third judge of the LHC has been told to hold an inquiry...why should we expect anything different from him?”

Advocate Aftab Ahmed Bajwa told The Express Tribune that on Wednesday he had requested the tribunal not to hold proceedings on Friday or Saturday. He said this request was turned down because “the proceedings could not be held up”. He said last Friday, the tribunal did not hold proceedings even after scheduling proceedings for that day.

The Lahore High Court public relations department issued a statement on the proceedings after 4pm. The statement said that the Lahore capital city police officer had informed the tribunal that those injured in the police operation had been served a notice. The Jinnah Hospital medical superintendent stated that the four injured patients could not appear in court to record their statements for security reasons.

The tribunal then appointed a district and sessions judge as local commissioner to record the patients’ statements by the bedside and present a report before the tribunal on July 14, the statement said.

The additional IGP said an interim report on the fact-finding inquiry was underway. He was directed to submit a report on proceedings against the police officials/officers responsible for the incident, on July 7.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 5^th, 2014.