Target killings: Govt put on notice in petition seeking powers for Rangers

NGO moves application to make Pakistan Rangers respondents in petition to accord Rangers powers to end target killing.

KARACHI:

The Sindh government was put on notice by a division bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC) in an application seeking powers to paramilitary forces.

On Friday, SHC Chief Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi were hearing a number of petitions, including one filed by NGO United Human Rights Commission and one by a former chief of the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee, Nazim F Haji, against unabated target killings in Karachi.

The NGO moved the application to make the Pakistan Rangers respondents in the petition.

The NGO’s chief relied upon a news report on a meeting in Islamabad, where a Rangers official said that if they were given full powers and assured zero political interference, they would end target killings within a month.

The bench put the Sindh government on notice for an unspecified date.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 4^th, 2011.