Black coats mark black day over minor’s killing

Opposition demands resignation of Shehbaz and Rana Sanaullah over law and order failures

LAHORE: The black coats marked Thursday as a black day to mourn the brutal incident of Zainab Ameen, eight-year-old girl in Kasur, and demanded resignation of Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah.

The lawyers wore black ribbon to express their anger on the incident and failure of the government authorities and boycotted courts’ proceedings. After the incident, Punjab Bar Council had announced a strike and demanded the government authorities to immediately arrest the culprits involved in taking life of the child in Kasur.

Holding a general house meeting, the Lahore High Court Bar Association termed it as ‘a brutal incident’ and called the police ‘cruel’ for denying FIR to the victim’s family and not hearing their grievances. The bar leaders said that the whole country was sad today over Zainab’s murder.

It was shameful that the body of the innocent child-girl was found from the debris, said Chaudhary Zulfiqar Ali, president of the bar while addressing the general house meeting. The leaders have lost morality to rule after the incident, he added. It was shocking that the family got the body four days after the incident, he said.

The bar president also condemned the ‘murder’ of two citizens during the protest saying that the same police killed citizens in the Model Town incident. We were still coping with the Model Town massacre and now this brutal incident had taken place, he said.

He said that Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar and Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa had taken notice of the incident but Punjab CM was busy in covering his corruption. The citizens, he said, had been left at the mercy of miscreants.

Bar’s Finance Secretary Zaheer Butt said that they had been planning to run a movement for justice of the innocent child. The entire nation was under grief, he said. The culprits of Model Town incident must be brought to justice, he said. Step down if you can’t provide justice to the victim’s family, he addressed the rulers.

Lahore Bar Association also observed all day strike in the lower courts and no lawyer appeared before any court. Model Town courts, Cantt courts and district courts gave deserted look. The lawyers remained in their chambers and held prayer gatherings for the diseased family. The bar leaders demanded the government to arrest the culprits and gave one-day ultimatum to the authorities. The lawyers also offered free legal aid to the victim’s family.

Opposition seeks resignation

Moreover, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Legislator Muhammad Arif Abbasi demanded the resignation of the Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah over his failure in controlling law and order in the province.

The demand was made by the opposition parliamentarian through his resolution he submitted in the Punjab Assembly. He implored that the provincial government had no writ in Punjab while the rulers had left the poor people on their own fate. He said that it seem the government had handed over criminal activities of the criminals to the people.

He said that the provincial law minister had completely failed to control the situation in Punjab. He demanded the government to ask for provincial law minister’s resignation on immediate bases.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Abbasi said that Sanaullah had failed in all the situations including the Model Town massacre and Kasur’s gruesome incidents. He said that the police had also failed in delivering and protecting the people efficiently.

“The performance of police can be guessed by the fact that a minor, Zainab, was missing for six days but police did nothing and remained clueless to trace the culprits,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2018.