May 12 mayhem: Sindh High Court orders police protection for petitioner

Petitioner claims to have been receiving threats since the reopening of the case

KARACHI: A two-judge bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC) ordered protection for Syed Muhammad Iqbal Kazmi, a petitioner who had filed a case for an inquiry into the May 12, 2007 bloodshed and had earlier withdrawn it. Kazmi said that he had been receiving threats since the case had been reopened earlier this month.

Kazmi informed a two-judge bench of the SHC on Monday that he was being threatened and needed police 'protection'.

"I have been receiving threatening calls ever since the court granted my application to reopen the case," Kazmi told the judges. "Therefore, the police authorities [should] be directed to provide me protection," he pleaded to the court.

The bench, headed by Justice Ahmed Ali M Sheikh, directed the provincial police officer to provide adequate security to Kazmi.

Last week, the matter was referred to this bench by another bench, which was headed by SHC Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, who had declined to hear the matter observing that he himself was among those affected on that day.

The suo motu proceedings tagged with a constitutional petition, filed by Kazmi, sought an inquiry into the riots that claimed the lives of over 50 people, mostly political activists and lawyers.

Former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had arrived on May 12, 2007 in Karachi 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 then army chief Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf and for the independence of the judiciary.

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, 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He had withdrawn his petition on November 19, 2007, but went to the court again after the restoration of the 'pre-November 3 emergency judiciary'.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, former Sindh home adviser Wasim Akhtar who is now the Karachi Mayor, the home secretary, the federal interior secretary, Rangers director-general, Sindh police chief, Karachi police chief and the SHO of the City Courts at that time as respondents.

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

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

Published in The Express Tribune, November 29^th, 2016.