SHC sets aside KPT workers’ dismissal

1,200 employees were sacked after being ‘illegally appointed’

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court nullified on Monday the Karachi Port Trust's notification terminating 1,200 workers who had allegedly been illegally appointed during the tenure of former Federal Ports and Shipping Minister Babar Ghauri. The court was hearing a plea challenging the notification.

The defence lawyer had maintained that the 1,200 employees in question had been appointed at the KPT between June 2012 and March 2013, as per the rules, further claiming that their employment was regularised in 2016 in accordance with the laws. However, he went on, the employees were terminated after it was alleged that they had been appointed on political grounds.

The court accepted the plea against the dismissal of the KPT workers and nullified the notification issued for their termination. Perween Rahman murder In another hearing, the SHC sought a progress report from the trial court on the Perween Rahman murder case, as it heard the bail pleas of Imran Sawati and others.

The joint investigation team report, prepared by Federal Investigation Agency's counter-terrorism director Babar Bakht, was submitted in court. According to the report, the officials who carried out the initial investigation of the murder case had committed criminal negligence in their probe and therefore ruined the case. It claimed that DIG Javed Alam Odho and SP Asif Aijaz were equally responsible for the negligence.

The report moves the court to remove the officials who carried out the initial investigation from their posts. It further adds that the Sindh IGP has the authority to take action against the senior police officials in question.

According to the report, the accused under trial were involved in the murder of Perween, the director of the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP), with the intention of illegally occupying OPP land. It further claims that no evidence of the involvement of influential persons in the murder had been found. Besides, the report points out, Perween had not nominated any influential person with regard to land grabbing during her lifetime, but had nominated accused Rahim Sawati, her neighbour.

It states that Rahim was an alleged extortionist and land-grabber and should therefore be nominated in cases pertaining to these crimes. The court accepted the report and sought a progress report for the murder case from the trial court. It adjourned the hearing for two weeks. Rahman, who had started the campaign against encroachment on amenity plots and land grabbing in the city, was shot dead in Orangi Town in 2013. In May 2016, the police had claimed that they had arrested the prime suspect, Rahim, a local leader of the Awami National Party (ANP) involved in criminal activities from Manghopir.

Appeal against death sentence The SHC also issued notices to the prosecution and police over a plea challenging the death sentence awarded to ASI Tariq over the extrajudicial killing of a citizen during a false encounter in Shah Faisal Colony. Tariq, the petitioner, maintained that the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) that sentenced him to death had ignored major aspects of the case while handing out the verdict. An ATC had sentenced Tariq to death and issued an arrest warrant for accused Ashiq Hussain Chachar, who is on the run, earlier this month.

The co-accused, including police officials Abdul Waheed, Shaukat Ali and Akbar Khan, were acquitted by the court. According to the police, Tariq and others opened fire at a rickshaw on January 18, 2018, killing Maqsood and wounding his friend. They later claimed the incident had been an encounter following a robbery bid.

The court issued notices to the prosecution and investigation police and sought their replies. Case disposed Separately, a two-member bench headed by Justice KK Agha disposed of a plea seeking security for Muttahida Qaumi Movement leader Salman Mujahid Baloch, stating that it had not been pursued. While Baloch had filed the plea, he failed to appear before the court to pursue it.