Judicial commission should investigate target killings

KARACHI: The Karachi Bar Association has demanded a judicial inquiry into the recent target killings after one of its members was shot dead on Monday. Blaming the government for the unabated violence in Karachi, its members demanded that Sindh Home Minister Zulfiqar Mirza and Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik resign.

Lawyers boycotted work at the City Courts complex on Tuesday to protest the murder of Muhammad Hanif Khan. A general body meeting was held at the Shuhda-e-Punjab Hall, in which the KBA’s Haider Imam Rizvi said that people were being killed every day while the law-enforcing agencies kept blaming one another. Rangers said they are merely there to back up the police. If they are not helping to stop the violence, then there is no reason to bear their deployment expenses, said Rizvi.

He demanded that a judicial commission be formed to carry out an independent inquiry into the killings and to find out the reasons for letting killers off the hook. Sindh Bar Council member Hanif Kashmiri said that the state should look after the families of those killed.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 23^rd, 2011.