What was done to lead protesters to Parade Ground, asks IHC

IHC summons IG, Commissioner, DC over failure to keep protesters at designated place

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court on Thursday summoned the Inspector General of Islamabad Police (IGP), the chief and deputy commissioners to appear in person along with a report on the preventive measures taken by the city’s administration to direct protesters blocking Faizabad to the designated protest area in Parade Ground.



While taking notice of the authorities’ inaction to enforce the writ of the government and a previous order from the Islamabad High Court (IHC), Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui asked the IGP, Chief Commissioner and DC to explain “why the law did not take its course to enforce the writ of government?”

Justice Siddiqui also ordered the Interior Ministry security to depute some responsible officer, not lower than an Additional Secretary, to appear before the court when it hears the case next week — November 20.

The directions came after a lawyer, Rana Abdul Qayyum, approached the court, seeking its intervention in ending the blockade at Faizabad.

A group of around 2,500 protesters led by the firebrand cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi travelled to the capital from Lahore last week and blocked the Faizabad intersection, the confluence of highways between the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi apart from being a major node between the highways from Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the Punjab.

Qayyum, through his counsel Inamul Rahiem and Malik Waheed Akhtar, requested the court to direct police and the Islamabad Capital Territory Administration (ICTA) to enforce the writ of the law and take action against the “delinquent protesters” for blocking the roads and creating a nuisance for the public at large.

Additionally, the petitioner urged that the lawful protesters should be confined to the Democracy Park and Speech Corner adjacent to the Islamabad Expressway, as notified in accordance with law.

He has also sought legal proceedings against the “delinquent protesters for beating the petitioner, threatening his life, keeping him in illegal detention and snatching away his money.”

The counsels told Justice Siddiqui that in an order by the court last year, no one can block the roads leading to any part of the city by holding a sit-in and that any such protests must be held in the Democracy Park and Speech Corner (Parade Ground).

“There is inaction on the part of respondents either due to inefficiency or some extraneous considerations,” he contended while referring to the government’s inability to restrict protests to the parade ground.

In the petition, Rahiem narrated how Qayyum was humiliated by the protesters. He noted that Qayyum, a retired Chief Warrant Officer (CWO) of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), had been manhandled, beaten up, briefly detained and deprived of cash by the protesters.

Moreover, Qayyum was heading home on his motorbike on November 10, 2017, when he was intercepted by the protesters near Faizabad who “started hurling filthy abuses to the petitioners and lawyers in general. They held the petitioner from neck and threw him on the ground and started beating him with sticks and kicks and punches and kept saying that you are “munafiq and “Kafir””.



Later, he was produced before a “Pir Sahib” who termed him an “apostate” and said that he (petitioner) should be killed. Soon, he said, Qayyum was produced before another man who was also a retired Chief Tech of PAF and introduced himself as Chief Tech Hafeez.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 17^th, 2017.