LHC to hear petition against Sahiwal JIT formation

Victim Khalil’s brother demands formation of judicial commission

LAHORE: A division bench of the Lahore High Court has set February 4 as the date to hear a petition filed by a family member of the deceased who were slain during the Sahiwal shootout. The petitioner challenged the joint investigation team looking into the matter and asked for the formation of a judicial commission.

Muhammad Khalil, the brother of petitioner Jalil, was gunned down along with his wife and teenage daughter in an ‘encounter’. Jalil approached the LHC, asking the court to restrain the JIT from further investigation.

The petitioner, through his counsel, told the court that a fabricated FIR had been registered after the fake encounter to make it seem like the victims were terrorists.  At the same time, another FIR was lodged against personnel of the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) after the protest of citizens against the killings. He stated that facts had also been distorted in the second FIR to make it allow the real culprits to evade conviction.

He questioned the partiality of the JIT since law enforcement agencies were involved in the matter. Jalil pointed out that ministers of the government had been changing their statements and this cast a shadow of their intentions to provide justice to the victims’ family.



Jalil contends that no recovery had been made from the arrested CTD personnel thus far. He added this reflected the apathy of JIT and favouritism being afforded to the culprits.

He stated the JIT also failed to even provide a copy of the police file to him despite repeated requests. He argued that the formation of a judicial commission was critical due to the lackadaisical approach of the JIT to provide justice to the victims

The petitioner asked the court issue an order for the formation of a judicial commission under Section 3 of the Punjab Tribunals of Inquiry Ordinance 1969 or under Section 3 of the Pakistan Commissions of Inquiry Act 2017 to dig out the facts of the Sahiwal incident.

In the meantime, he urged that court to declare the formation of the JIT as illegal and restrain it from investigating the matter any further.

Plea for judicial commission 

Meanwhile, another plea was also filed to seek the formation of a judicial commission to probe the Sahiwal shootout. The number of such petitions had reached four up till this point.

 



Judicial Activism Panel head Azhar Siddique filed the petition, naming the home ministry and Inspector General of Punjab Police as respondents.

It was stated in the petition that the unlimited powers afforded to the police resulted in such an incident. It was further stated that none of the true facts had been unearthed despite the constitution of a JIT.

Last month, the Punjab government decided to remove the top counterterrorism police officials after a joint investigation team (JIT) blamed them in its preliminary report for the killing of an innocent family in a shady operation at Sahiwal earlier this week.

The JIT was constituted on the direction of Prime Minister Imran Khan to investigate the killing of a man named Khalil, his wife Nabeela, daughter Areeba and friend Zeeshan Javed by CTD officials on GT Road in Sahiwal on Saturday.

Khalil’s son Mohammad Umair and two daughters Muniba and Jaziba were also wounded in the “operation” which the CTD claimed was conducted on the basis of intelligence against “terrorists”.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 2^nd, 2019.