Empty courtrooms ‘Busy’ police unable to produce prisoners

ISLAMABAD: Hearing of hundreds of cases in the capital had to be postponed to a later date after police failed to produce under-trial prisoners in Islamabad district and sessions courts on Tuesday.

Police said all their personnel were deployed at various points of the federal capital to keep a check on the law and order situation due to the PTI’s planned protest.

A letter sent by Islamabad district SP legal to sessions judges in the capital read that “judicial hawalat (charges) could not be produced on November 1 before the honourable courts [due to a] security point of view”.

With the police unable to present the defendants or the accused, judges at various sessions courts and judicial magistrates had to postpone their respective hearings.

A police official, however, said that prisoners were likely to be produced on Wednesday since the PTI had postponed its protest plans.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2016.