May 12 carnage case: Notices issued to federal, Sindh govts on urgent hearing plea

Petitioner has accused Gen (retd) Musharraf of being responsible

KARACHI: The federal and provincial governments have been issued notices on an application seeking the urgent hearing of a high-profile case relating to the violent clashes that happened on May 12, 2007.

Sindh High Court Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, who headed the two-judge bench, fixed the hearing on the suo motu proceedings tagged with a constitutional petition seeking inquiry into the riots that killed over 50 people, mostly political activists and lawyers.

Former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had arrived to address a lawyers’ gathering but was confined within the Jinnah International Airport premises and subsequently left for Islamabad without addressing the legal fraternity, spurring a countrywide movement for the restoration of the judges sacked by the then army chief, Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf, and independence of the judiciary.

During the nine years since the mayhem, suo motu proceedings were initiated by judges, who were later sacked for refusing to take oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) of then president Musharraf and were later disposed by other judges who had taken oath under the PCO.

Every year, the legal fraternity observes May 12 as a ‘Black Day’, demanding the successive governments to inquire into the bloodshed and try those responsible.

The petition, seeking a judicial inquiry into the bloody incidents of that day and the trial of former president Musharraf, was earlier dismissed as the petitioner, Syed Iqbal Kazmi, preferred to withdraw it.

He had withdrawn his petition on November 19, 2007, but went to the court again after the restoration of the ‘pre-November 3 emergency judiciary’.

He had cited Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain, the Sindh home adviser, home secretary, federal interior secretary, Rangers director-general, Sindh police chief, Karachi police chief and the SHO of the City Courts of that time as respondents.

Through a miscellaneous application, Kazmi had also accused former president Musharraf of being responsible for the entire episode.

On Thursday, Kazmi moved another application seeking urgent hearing of the petition. The judges issued notices of the urgent plea to the federal and provincial authorities concerned by the next date of hearing.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 18^th, 2016.