F-8 katcheri blast: Lawyer seeks fresh FIR in case

IHC bench issues notices to respondents’ lawyers.

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court on Tuesday issued notices to respondents in connection with a petition seeking the registration of a new FIR in the 2007 attack on a restoration of the judiciary protest at the F-8 district courts.

Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui issued notices to the legal counsels of the respondents for perusal of the case, where Chaudhry Muhammad Aslam, a former protocol officer for Benazir Bhutto, , has been attempting to register an FIR against those allegedly behind the F-8 Katcheri bombing on July 7, 2007.

The petitioner claims that the 2007 bombing near a Pakistan Peoples Party camp was caused by a timed device, while the police instead lodged an FIR describing the explosion as a suicide attack. Moreover, he claims the police also did not incorporate the petitioner’s version in the case, despite showing consent before an additional session judge of Islamabad.

He said that the police had assured a district court that they were ready to incorporate version of the petitioner in the FIR and to investigate it but later, they never allowed him to come and record his statement.

He has made respondents of former president Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf, former interior minister Aftab Ahmad Sherpao, former Intelligence Bureau director-general Ejaz Shah, and the officials who were Islamabad chief commissioner, interior secretary, Islamabad IG, Islamabad SSP, and Margalla SHO at the time.

A suicide bomber targeted the lawyers’ rally at the F-8 district courts in Islamabad.

The attack left at least 18 people dead and 32 others injured.

The rally was organised as part of the movement to restore the judiciary, many members of which had been purged by Musharraf. The former CJP was supposed to address the rally, but the bomb had ripped through the gathering before his arrival.

The bench adjourned the case till May 11.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 13^th, 2016.