Price of politicking: Governor Zubair left out of Sindh Apex Committee

Panel decides to shift 270 Central Jail inmates to high-security prisons, their cases to military courts

KARACHI: The Sindh Apex Committee has decided to shift some 270 inmates – including 19 most notorious prisoners – from Karachi Central Jail to different other jails of the province, which are going to be declared high-security prisons.

The 20^th meeting of the apex committee, chaired by Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, was held in Karachi on Friday. Corps Commander Karachi Lt Gen Shahid Baig Mirza, Rangers Director General Maj Gen Mohammad Saeed and Sindh chief secretary were among the participants.

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Sindh Governor Muhammad Zubair, who is a member of the committee formed under the National Action Plan (NAP) against terrorism in 2015 – was not invited to the moot.

Official sources said Home Department had earlier issued an invitation to Zubair. But later the chief minister directed the home secretary to issue a revised invitation to all participants, excluding Zubair.

Apparently, the decision was made to express the provincial government’s displeasure over the ‘political activities’ of the governor who has been a leader of the PML-N and played a key role as mediator to convince MQM to vote for the PML-N’s candidate in the Aug 1 parliamentary vote for the prime minister.

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During the meeting, it was pointed out that there were 270 notorious prisoners in Karachi Central Jail. Nineteen of these prisoners are most dangerous and are running their networks from the prison.

The meeting decided to shift them within the next 10 days to other prisons of Sindh. The chief minister also directed the home department to move their cases to military courts.

For this purpose, the home, law and counter-terrorism department (CTD) would scrutinise their cases and send them to military courts with support documents.

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Sindh has already sent 90 cases to military courts. Thirty-seven (37) of these cases were tried in the military courts which awarded capital punishment to 21 convicts. However, not a single execution has taken place so far because of appeals.

The meeting also discussed the mushroom growth of madrassas in the province. It was pointed out that around 1,000 seminaries were illegally established on government land.

The meeting decided to scrutinise the documents/NOCs of these seminaries.  No seminary would be allowed to be constructed on the main arteries and roads, it was resolved.

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The meeting approved sending 10 more cases, including the case related to the killing of Amjad Sabri, to military courts. All these crimes were allegedly perpetrated by the same group of criminals – including Asim Capri, Ishaq Bobi, and Samiullah.

The meeting also discussed growing cybercrime cases and decided to seek powers from the federal government and the Federal Investigation Agency to register and investigate the cybercrime cases.

The meeting was informed that the data of terrorists was being compiled. The Sindh police were working closely with the Punjab police and sharing and compiling criminals’ record as decided in the 18^th meeting of the committee.

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The meeting also discussed the growing trend of targeted killing of policemen. “This is a very serious issue. These crimes must be stopped,” the CM was quoted as saying. The DG Rangers and IG police told the meeting that they were close to busting the gang involved in the killing of policemen.