Tampered JIT reports?

If the reports haven't been tampered with, why was the Sindh govt trying to defy the court orders

It appears that Uzair Baloch, a veritable ‘don’ in the gang wars that dogged Karachi for decades, was also working with Iranian intelligence. This is one of the most notable bits of information in the three separate investigation reports released by the Sindh government at the start of the week. The other reports deal with the Baldia factory fire and the corruption case against former Fishermen Cooperative Society chief Nisar Morai.

The Baldia report is quite straightforward. It says the 2012 fire was an arson attack in response to the owners not giving a Rs200 million payoff to the MQM, while naming a senior party figure, Hammad Siddiqi, among the suspects. The report also notes, unsurprisingly, that the police helped the offenders instead of the victims. We are used to the police allying themselves with criminals, especially the elected kind.

The other two reports end up with significant overlap. The Baloch report has found that the ‘Lyari don’ and his accomplices murdered hundreds of gangsters, law enforcement officials, and innocent people for various reasons — Baloch has confessed to at least 198 murders. The report also says Baloch was involved in the illegal drug trade, extortion, and land scams. The Morai report also references some PPP leaders’ links with Baloch, including former Sindh Home Minister Zulfiqar Mirza.

But it is those spying charges that have raised the most eyebrows. Although it was known that Baloch had been convicted of spying, the details are astounding. They also call into question Baloch’s financial ties with political leaders as he was apparently selling Iran secrets such as information on military installations.

The JIT reports, however, carry nothing that could prove that Baloch and Morai had links with the top PPP leadership, including Asif Ali Zardari — as against what Federal Minister Ali Zaidi has long been claiming. Zaidi — who had moved the Sindh High Court in 2017, seeking release of the reports – insists that the reports unveiled by the Sindh government are different from original.

And there is something that goes in Zaidi’s favour: If the reports have not been tampered with, why had the provincial government been trying to defy the court orders thus far, by not making them public?

Published in The Express Tribune, July 8^th, 2020.

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