PNS Mehran: SHC dismisses application for urgent hearing

Head of Anjuman-e-Islami slams navy for negligence.

KARACHI:

An application to hear a petition pertaining to the PNS Mehran attack case out of turn was dismissed on Tuesday by a division bench of the High Court of Sindh (SHC) comprising Chief Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi.

Haji Gul Ahmed, the self-styled ameer or chief of the Anjuman-e-Islami Islah-bara-e-Mohashira (Islamic Organisation for Social Reform), filed the constitutional petition and moved an application for an urgent hearing. On Tuesday, the bench dismissed the application as being unwarranted.

The petitioner seeks a judicial probe into the PNS Mehran attack, maintaining that the incident was a complete “security failure” as the terrorists entered the naval base from the inner side of the PAF base Faisal and therefore the Pakistan Air Force was equally responsible for the incident.

The petitioner maintained that at the time of the attack six US officers and 11 Chinese personnel were present at the base and were evacuated amid the ongoing operation.

Referring to a statement and press briefing by Federal Interior Minister Abdul Rahman Malik, the petitioner maintained that according to him, the number of attackers was six and four were killed in an ambush by the Naval Marines while two escaped. But according to the Pakistan Navy’s official version in the FIR lodged by an authorised officer, the number of attackers was 12.

If this is the state of security and six militants can jolt the entire military establishment, one could imagine their response if an enemy country attacks Pakistan, the petitioner stated, adding that in the first instance there was no adequate security and after the incident no plan to end the stand-off with militants seemed to exist. Given the security threats and lack of adequate planning to meet such eventualities, the incident may be probed by a high-level judicial commission with a mandate to fix the responsibility and to recommend punishments to those who were at fault, the petitioner prayed the SHC.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 1^st, 2011.