Salmaan Taseer assassination: In-camera hearing on January 24

Decision to hold in-camera hearing comes after fiasco at reception of Qadri when he was showered with rose petals.

ISLAMABAD: The hearing for the case of former Governor Punjab Salmaan Taseer’s assassination will be heard in-camera at Adiyala Jail on January 24.

The decision to hold an in-camera session comes after a fiasco at the reception of Malik Mumtaz Qadri on January 5, which was held at the Islamabad District Courts, where he was showered with rose petals which was broadcast on local media channels. Some of the news photographers in all-out confusion tried to climb up the Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) to take Qadri’s photograph.

As a result, the Police resorted to dodging the media while transferring Qadri to the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Rawalpindi on January 13.

TV channel vans had been stationed outside Iqbal Hall waiting for Qadri to show up, who was taken to the ATC Rawalpindi in a separate Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC), having the electronic media go through the hassle of changing places. As a result, they were successful in reducing the number of media at the ATC.

The first attempt led to a second one, where news had spread that police was shifting Qadri to Pakistan Institute for Medical Sciences for examination. The vans had started to camp at the hospital in the evening. At midnight, at least three ambulances and an APC showed up and rushed to Pims emergency.

Reporters were on-air within seconds giving details of what was going on in the emergency where Qadri was being ‘examined’.

Qadri, in fact, had already been shifted to the police station by that time after his examination early in the night. He was entered from a different gate, examined in the administration block in front of the Children hospital and then taken back from the same gate.

The ambulances that media focused and reported on were empty.